Page 12 of Best Served Hot
It was kind of sad putting the phone down on Alex. She was Nicole’s comrade, her only one. They were linked in a way that made not a jot of sense, but the link was there. But what the hell would they do after all was said and done? Go for drinks? Catch a flick on a Saturday afternoon? It didn’t seem likely.
Nicole was furious on Alex’s behalf. She couldn’t believe Ethan had pulled this. Despite what Alex had said, she wondered if there was something she could do. She could offer to have the divorce be simple if he rehired her. Would that work? It was hard to say.
She didn’t know who Ethan was anymore. She had no idea how he was going to react to any of this. She thought there might be tears. Or maybe he’d go the other way, anger. His usual way of dealing with things was avoidance or blame deflection. But today might be special. She might see something brand-new.
Well, it was beyond her control. All of this had been beyond her control from the moment Nicole had met him. She just hadn’t realised it.
She decided to keep that thing about Alex in her back pocket and see how this whole scene rolled out.
She let herself in at 10:00 AM, noting her car on the drive. Nice of him to pick it up for her, the sweetie pie. It would certainly be handy for a quick getaway later, so she had that to thank him for.
Ethan wouldn’t be back until the evening. Nicole decided to get all her clothes packed so she could be ready to go when the time came. She spent hours doing just that and put the cases in the hall closet, ready to go.
Then she realised what she was doing. She was essentially giving him the house. Fuckthat. He could go. They were fifty-fifty on the mortgage and utilities. Despite his mammoth earnings, Nicole had always insisted on that.
Since she hadn’t done anything wrong,hecould spend tonight in a shitty hotel. He might even end up in that same dreadful room with any luck. She unpacked everything and put it away exactly where it had come from.
By the time that was done, it was the afternoon, and she was tired. She lay down on the bed and wondered how many women had been in this bed unbeknownst to her. Not Alex, at least. Nicole had interrupted that. She would burn the bloody thing when he was gone, regardless.
She realised she was still wearing her wedding ring. She slid it off and placed it on Ethan’s bedside table.
She got up, deciding that she would pack Ethan’s stuff for him. That way, when she finished laying into him and he was begging her to relent, she could show him how serious she was by revealing his shit, packed and ready to go, along with his sorry arse.
She went into his side of the wardrobe and started pulling out his clothes. Armani suits, Gucci shirts, Prada shoes. She wasn’t going to pack them with care. She didn’t give a toss how much it all cost the pretentious prick.
But as Nicole was about to yank a few suits out and manhandle them good and proper, she saw some old boxes in the bottom of the wardrobe, his old family photos. He could take that with him today, too. She pulled out the box and put it near the door. As she did, the worn-out corner opened up a little gap. Through that tiny gap, she saw something odd. Something shiny.
She opened the box and what she found wasn’t a shiny object, but one that lit up. A small tablet. It had been awakened by the jiggle of the box. Nicole had never seen the tablet before. It was a cheap, off-brand unit with no fruit logos to be found. Nicole frowned at it.
Was there any chance this was an old, forgotten piece of tech? Unlikely since it was still charged. No, this had been hidden and was used in Ethan’s private moments. If she’d found this before, she might not have thought much of it. But in light of recent revelations, it felt very likely to Nicole that it probably held a lot of scuzzy little secrets.
Nicole decided she had a right to know those secrets. It was all out now, after all. Might as well plunge into the abyss.
It was locked, of course. It had a four-digit lock code. Nicole had a bash at it, trying his birthday, her birthday, and their anniversary, but after three strikes, she was locked out for five minutes. She spent those minutes thinking very seriously about what the code could be. It had to be a number that Ethan would be able to remember.
His memory was awful, so it wouldn’t be random. And on the off chance that Nicole might stumble upon it as she had today, it would be a number that she wouldn’t be able to figure out. Or at least, a number that Ethan didn’tbelieveshe’d be able to figure out.
Nicole sat on the edge of the bed, holding the tablet, watching the unlock counter run to zero, trying to think. She happened to glance at Ethan’s bedside table. It was tidier than hers, just a couple of paperbacks and a picture of Ethan and her at their wedding. Nicole sneered at the fool in white standing next to him. ‘Idiot,’ she muttered.
But then her eye went back to his stack of books. The top book. It was a Star Wars novelisation. A dorky thing to read but each to their own. But something about it, him being a fan of that series, banging on recently about how greatThe Mandalorianwas, the whole thing being so connected to his childhood, and how the first time he saw one of those movies, he was eight. Which meant the movie came out in…
Nicole picked up the tablet, now available for keypad numbers again. She tapped in nineteen-seventy-seven and click—it unlocked. Nicole was only briefly jubilant because the next thing she was going to do was look through this thing and find out everything. Everything she’d been locked out of for the entirety of her marriage.
On the desktop was a dating app. It didn’t surprise her to find it, but it was still a gut punch. She went in and looked at his profile. First off, he was lying about his age. Thirty-nine, her arse. Second, he was using a photo of himself that she immediately realised was a cropped version of a photo of them together. The man had no shame.
She opened the messages. They went back a long time, over a decade. It wasn’t just a few. It was hundreds. And it was continuous. He was always looking. Some were more receptive than others, but he seemed to be playing a numbers game. And there was always someone willing.
It never stopped, not even for a week the entire time she’d known him. Not a pause when they met, not a break when they married. There were messages from the week they’d been on honeymoon.
As bad as this had all been, this was worse. Nicole understood how little she meant to him with a horrid clarity. Ten years, all that time, all that affection, all that love. She’d given all she had, and it was nothing to him. All he cared about was sex with new people.
Nicole looked at the ring she’d left on Ethan’s bedside table. She picked it up and slid it back on. She wasn’t going to divorce him just yet. She wasn’t even going to leave him. Not today.
The front door banged downstairs. ‘Nicole?’ Ethan called.
Nicole smiled to herself as she thought about what she was going to do. She took that smile out to the landing and leaned over the bannisters. ‘Hi!’ she said cheerily.
Ethan looked up, relieved. ‘Where have you been?’ He ran a hand through his thinning hair.
