Page 51 of Am I the Only One

Our food arrives, and when the plates are set, she places her napkin onto the table, saying, “You’re absolutely right. I’m really glad we’re getting to know each other.” She then scoots her chair out. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the ladies’ room.”

She heads to the restroom, and I stab my fork into a crisp romaine leaf. As I’m chewing, I notice Olivia’s cell phone lying facedown on table. Casting my eyes over toward the restrooms, I consider all the information I could find on the device she so carelessly left behind.

My next heart’s beat is filled with a dose of adrenaline.

Olivia is Tripp’s scheduler, which means that her calendar should be a mirror image of his. With fast hands, I reach across the table, and I’m shocked to see it isn’t locked with a password or anything.

What a moron.

I skip past the calendar and go straight for her texts. Tripp’s name is third from the top, and I quickly scroll through the messages, trying to find anything—anything that doesn’t involve work.

There’s nothing obvious, so I close out the app and pull up her calendar as I fish around in my purse for my own phone.

I start tapping on each day to get a detailed view of her schedule, which is pretty much Tripp’s schedule. With time being my enemy, I can’t waste any more. I use my phone and snap pictures of as many days as I can. My jittery fingers keep me from moving as fast as I want to, but I do as best as I can while keeping my eye on the door to the restroom.

When I’ve collected a little over two weeks’ worth of information, I close down her calendar app, go back to her home screen, and exit out before sliding the phone back across the table.

Nervously, I look around the room, paranoid that someone may be watching me and my peculiar behavior, but no one seems to be. So, I drop my cell back into my purse and then take a gulp of my rosé to quell my nerves.

Peering out of the corner of my eye, I spot Olivia heading back my way.

Shit, that was close.

“I was just thinking,” she says as she takes her seat and picks up her fork. “A few of my girlfriends and I have a girls’ night once a month. You should totally join us for the next one. I think you’d really like them.”

I smile my plastic smile. “That sounds like fun.”

“Great! We’re getting together next weekend.”

“Perfect.”

For the next forty-five minutes, we eat our food while continuing to chit chat. I keep the focus on her since there isn’t much about my life I care to share with this girl. She goes on about what it was like for her growing up in DC, occasionally dropping a story here and there that involves Luca.

Yeah, she definitely still has lingering feelings for him.

Once we’ve paid the bill, Olivia has to rush to get back to the office. She offers to drop me off at the Metro station, but I politely decline, lying about wanting to do a little shopping before heading home. Truth is, I need a break to settle the tension inside me. Never have I lied and deceived so much in my life, but this situation I’ve gotten myself into has me behaving so out of character that I barely recognize myself. I know Carly is crazy. Hell, when I was describing my time with Tripp, I thought she was going to orgasm right then and there. When I arrive home, get into my car, and plug the address I found in Olivia’s phone into my GPS, I begin to question my own sanity.

I pause with my hand on the gearshift, but before I second-guess myself, I throw it into reverse and back out of the driveway.

Turn by turn leads me closer to the broken home of the Montgomery’s. And nearly an hour and a half later, I’m pulling down the long stretch of road that leads to their massive property on the Eastern Bay.

I know Tripp is in the city, but I have no clue if Carly is as well, so I hesitate to stop, to get out of my car, and to peek in the windows just to get a glimpse of the opulent life Carly wants to run away from.

If I lived this kind of life, I’m not sure I’d be so quick to walk away from it. Hell, she has it made, and with the name she carries and the money behind it, she’d never have to work another day in her life. With as much as her husband is away, she could easily find her own sidepiece to keep her company and fill the void without having to give all this up.

I would never actually say that to her because the path she has chosen benefits me. If it takes her ruining a good thing for me to better my situation, then so be it. I won’t feel guilty for doing what I have to do to survive. I just wonder ifshewill.

Carly

I crunch on an ice cube from my glass of water as if the coolness will snuff the flame under my heated skin. It’s a worthless attempt, but at least it soothes my dry throat.

“Did anything else happen?”

Emma, who sits across from me, is pulled together with her golden hair in loose waves, her perfect makeup, and her flawless, tight body. No wonder Tripp can’t keep his hands off her. It’s only natural for me to feel the torment of jealousy.

It took almost a week, but this morning, she called me to let me know that she would be meeting up with Tripp today. And now, here we sit at the same roadside diner in Virginia we met at after she agreed to help me out. She just finished telling me all about their encounter today, explaining that he was pressed for time, which I know to be true. His schedule was pretty full today before he added in an extra appointment to meet and fuck a girl young enough to be his daughter.

She described it as quick and passionate, saying that Tripp was eager and hard when he met her at an old, abandoned lighthouse and fucked her against a wall. It’s too reminiscent of when Tripp made love to me against the wall of the greenhouse the day he asked me to marry him.

---