Finding Tessa Jaime Hendricks (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📖

“Are you alone?” I ask in a semi-disguised voice when she picks up.

“Hey. Hang on,” she says.

The phone plunks into an abyss, and I know she’s at work with Asshole, trying to hide the burner before being discovered. “Let me call you back in a few minutes. I’ll go for coffee,” she whispers, then hangs up.

Waiting never bothered me. Biding time.

However, these five minutes are excruciating as I picture her, tall and blond, in her clicky-clacky expensive heels that Asshole probably bought her. He liked women to look a certain way, and even I fit the mold for a little while. Maribel Lopez was half Puerto Rican on her father’s side but somehow got her white mother’s less-dominant genes. She had her father’s height but her mother’s features, including the dirty blond hair and light skin. The first time I met her, I thought she was a model, so I sort of understood Asshole’s fascination with her. Right now, she’s probably ducking the little cheap phone into her Zac Posen bag, then popping her head into his office to tell him she’s running out, and does he want anything? Supposedly that’s how it started.

Maribel told me everything when I approached her a couple of weeks ago. She had no choice, really. She was his “work wife” at the hedge fund. She knew me, his actual wife. I followed her home one day, when Asshole was out with clients, and she stopped in her driveway when I pulled up. She didn’t act paranoid when she saw me get out of my car—she was good at her deception. Maybe she thought I was just coming over to say hello, so she did what every mistress trying not to get found out does. Be accommodating. Smile. Lie.

She stopped at her door and gave a little wave. Likely shitting her pants, but still. As I got closer, she saw my black eye. Her face registered shock when I came into full view.

When I told her that I knew about the affair, and that Asshole did this to me repeatedly, she believed me.

She didn’t go off on a tangent about how I’m crazy and that they’re in love. How I didn’t deserve him. She wasn’t jealous or confrontational, as mistresses usually are. She was immediately sympathetic, invited me in for coffee, and I even cried in front of her. She apologized profusely, saying she got caught up in his charm and it had been going on for a few months.

Of course, I already knew that.

One thing about the men I’ve dated in my past is that I know a cheating man. The signs. The late nights. The shower when they come home. The complete disregard for my feelings.

He may as well have worn a red A on his chest. It would’ve been less obvious.

One night when he passed out on some twenty-five-year-old scotch, I went through his phone, as most suspicious wives do. All the evidence was there, as most cheating husbands needed to validate themselves over and over by rereading the sexy text messages from someone other than their wife.

What Maribel didn’t know was how he treated me. Of course, in the beginning of their affair, she said he gave her the same sad sob story that every horrible man with a handcuff on their fourth left finger said: She doesn’t pay attention to me, she doesn’t work, I buy her everything, the sex is dwindling, I’m a rich virile man with so much to give. And Asshole is charming—it’s how I fell for him too, but that’s a whole other story.

So, one night at work, she stayed late. So did he. And what’s the term the guilty use? One thing led to another.

Uh huh. His dick led itself right into her wide-open legs.

But I digress.

She said she asked him if he needed anything when she was leaving, and he pounced like a cat onto a tabletop. After months of them flirting, she said she made an error in judgment.

Sixteen times. Sixteen times in two months. That’s a hell of a lot of error.

But she did believe me, and I’m thankful for that. Her rage grew as she held my hand and let me talk about all the times that he put me in my place.

When I told Maribel that I was afraid of leaving, she wore her guilt over the affair like blinking neon, and said she’d help me if I needed it. She’d even go a step further—she’d help me stick it to him. She even agreed to keep up pretenses for a couple of weeks while we figured out my next move. Fuck him a few more times. And after I disappeared, and he looked guilty, she’d go on record about their affair. Ruin his life. Really put the pressure on him.

And keep me safe.

I’ve never had a real friend, but I imagine this is what it’s like. Someone who has your back. Girl power and all that.

When the phone rings, I answer with flourish. Giddy. Smiling even though she can’t see me, but she’ll hear it in my voice.

“Hey,” I say when I pick up.

“Hey. I’ve only got a few minutes. But I did exactly like you wanted,” Maribel says, and I hear the relief in her voice as well. “Drew didn’t tell me that you were missing Friday night, but he knows something is up. Just like you wanted, I texted him over and over, promising vile sex things. He didn’t answer me until late at night, probably when he realized you were just gone with no explanation. But we know what a pig he is, so he came over. Didn’t tell me you were missing though. He actually said that you were bitching at him about something and he left and came to me instead. Because he loves me.” She scoffed. “God, I feel like such an idiot for believing him all those months.”

“That’s what Drew is good at. Making you feel like an