Page 45 of Devil’s Disciples

“What does that mean?”

“When you and that guy with the arm-sized dick have sex in your office.”

I chuckled. “We do it during the day, not at night.”

“Never late in the day?”

“Nope.”

“Do you think it’s weird?”

“That we don’t bone at five o’clock?”

“That you only do it during the day.”

Him leaving his shirt on was weird. But, I never viewed the time of day we fucked as weird. I guessed he was busy being an eccentric entrepreneur in the evenings. It wasn’t anything I needed to justify to Holly, that was for sure. “We bone when he’s got time. He’s got businesses to run.”

She tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows. “He has sex during the day and runs his business at night?”

“That’s right.”

“Listen to what you’re saying.”

Now that she’d mentioned it, it seemed slightly odd. Maybe a little more than slightly. I wasn’t going to admit it, though. He didn’t wear a wedding ring and there weren’t any of the telltale signs that he’d taken one off, either. As long as I wasn’t having an affair with a man who was in a committed relationship, I really didn’t care why he chose to fuck me during the day.

“He comes by when his schedule lets him,” I said. “Stop worrying about it.”

“Has he been up here yet? To see your new place?”

I hadn’t seen Baker since the day I told him I was moving in. I suspected he feared having me as a neighbor would create problems with his privacy, but nothing could be further from the truth. I expected him to give me mine. In return, I wouldn’t invade his. Given enough time he’d see I wasn’t a threat to his manner of living life. When he did, he’d return.

I hoped so, anyway. Even though all we shared was sex, I missed out time together.

“Not yet,” I said.

She walked to the window and peered down at the street. “You don’t see that as weird?”

“Everything’s weird to you.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Hank started doing weird stuff. Six months later, I found out he was having sex with that Simon chick.”

“Sierra,” I said. “Her name was Sierra Simon.”

She gave me a condescending look and then turned toward the window. “Yeah. Sierra. Fucking bitch.”

Holly placed blame for the affair on the waitress, saying that she should have had enough common sense not to fuck a married man. She set up fake accounts on every social media platform imaginable, and friended her on Facebook while posing as another person. After a few years of stalking her, she eventually let it go.

But she never found fault in Hank’s actions.

I, on the other hand, viewed it no differently than I viewed my father’s decision to cheat on my mother. He had a responsibility to be faithful to her, and he didn’t meet it. He made a conscious decision to crush her belief that he loved her and her alone. I viewed the aftermath, entirely, as being his fault.

It wasn’t a matter of if a man would cheat, it was a matter of when. For men, it seemed lying was second nature.

“Hey!” Holly shouted. “Is this him?”

Her voice brought me back to reality. I wiped my watering eyes as I walked toward the window. “Huh?”

She pointed toward the glass. “Is this your guy?”