The Lie by Natalie Wrye (primary phonics books .txt) 📕

I slip into the back through the employee entrance. Stopping by the supply closet, I decide to check it opening the door and reaching inside.

“Eric?”

The closet is empty.

“Eric?” I call again.

Only silence.

“Eric?!”

My heart sinks. Until I hear a strange noise that draws me closer to the lockers just beyond the other side of the closet.

Back in this little spit of space, a strong feeling of déjà vu washes over me, and I glance beyond the grate of the door, staring to the other side—at the origin of the weird sounds a little farther away.

My stomach drops. I nearly jump back, but I force myself to keep still. I see the two tiny figures behind the metal grate. Two people, half-clothed, locked together at the hips, grunting and groaning as they move.

My mouth drops open.

“Sheena!” I hear a male say. “Oh…oh, God…so good! So……gooood!”

My breath whooshes out of my body as I watch them.

“Holy shit,” my lips whisper without my permission. My entire body reacts outside of my own will, as my gaze goes up and finds the sleek blond strands atop the head of the one man I'd been looking for.

The only man this could be.

“Let me feel you,” Eric says, reaching around Sheena’s waist and groping her breast. He squeezes it. “Feel your tight little body…”

“Oh, Eric,” Sheena whispers. “I’ve been so bad.” Sheena pulls the man who was almost my boyfriend toward the corner of the Employee Area.

“Shit,” Eric mutters, eyes closed. He strokes the woman’s hair. “Yes, Sheena. So good. Always been so good. Since the moment we met.”

He kisses her forehead. “I always knew you would be the only woman for me and that I would be the only man for you…” He waits. “Aren't I?”

The dark redheaded hesitates. “Sure, baby. You're the only one for me. You know that.”

A lie.

A lie so large it should have its own zip code.

But I say nothing, grimacing at that awful sight.

And it's not because it makes me feel sad.

It doesn't. It just disgusts me.

And that scares the Bejesus out of me.

Because if anyone had asked me a week ago, I would have said that Eric was a man you could depend on. A man you could see a future with. A man you could marry.

And now seeing him like this, fawning all over a woman who isn't even me, I feel…

I feel…

Absolutely nothing.

I turn my back on the scene in front of me, slinking out of the closet in the direction from which I came.

I head back to the bar, grabbing the barstool on the farthest corner and sitting my jean-covered ass on the distressed leather.

I fold my hands.

I don't even realize I'm smiling until Kev comes over my way.

“Hey there, laddie,” Kev says, leaning on the bar. “What's that big grin on your face all about?”

My grin widens. “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Doesn't look like nothing,” he comments, bushy eyebrows arching.

I arch my brows back at him.

Good ol' Kev.

He’s the kind of man who looks like he just stepped out of a whiskey commercial. Tall. Broad shoulders. Big arms. A man who works out of muscle memory.

His beard, dark brown and thick, seems to say, “I don’t need to eat. I just need to drink.”

And I wholeheartedly agree with his beard right now.

I lift a finger. “One very strong martini, please. Extra vermouth and olives.”

Kev's dark brows shoot farther up on his forehead as he gawks at me, turning to prepare my order. “Drinking on the job, eh? I'm positive that's a first.”

“It is,” I answer, a weight somehow lifting off my shoulders. I slump in my seat. “Maybe the first time and the last.” I slide him a twenty-dollar bill. Kev's eyes drop to the twenty, but he doesn't take it.

“If I finish this martini before, uh… Casanova Eric finishes ejaculating on Sheena's leg, do you think you can tell him that it was nice while it lasted?”

Kev laughs, a hearty sound that shakes the air. “I'm guessing you found him, then?”

“Sure did.”

“Aye,” he replies. “Indeed. Then no, I do not think I will tell him that it was nice while it lasted. In fact, I might tell him to kiss my big bollocks.”

I giggle, grabbing my martini and taking a sip. “Ya know, I don't think I'll stop you, Kev.”

“Just know you earned your martini.” He leans closer. “And I think you made the right decision.”

I take a sip of my martini, my thoughts drifting to Andrew, to the bar, to how much I might miss being here, if I sell.

The bar has always been my sanctuary. My security blanket.

Like one big, expensive Eric in building format, it'd been the object I'd clung to.

Hypothetically, something to keep me warm at night.

But never quite…satisfying. Never quite filling that hole that existed in my life.

Or arms.

I nod at Kev, knowing it's the truth. “I think I did too,” I tell him, my voice soft, my smile big.

I dip my finger into my martini and swirl it around, the liquid mixing with my fingertip before finally licking off the salt. I gaze at the olive in the drink as I do, remembering the look on Andrew's face when I told him I was selling the bar. How I felt like I was selling out on him.

I am, I know.

But I can't help but feel like I'm selling out on me, too.

The old me. The me that needed the comfort and safety, no matter how stifling it was.

I look back up at Kev and give him my best grin.

I drink my martini, thinking about all the possibilities for my life. If I sell the bar. What it would be like to be free of the security blanket I clung to all these years.

I look at my martini, then at my life.

My heart.

I barely got the chance to know Andrew, but in that moment, I know. I want to know him more.

Finishing the martini, I push off my stool, ready to abandon my usual dealing with bullshit kit for