Breaking The Norm

It has been two weeks since Jake organised that amazing surprise date night in our living room and things had been perfectly normal between the two of us and surprisingly I hadn’t missed Dom. Even though I missed the pain and the pleasure that came from the pain during sex I was content with what I had with Jake and that made me realise just how he means to me.

I might have panicked when I thought he was doing to propose but when I saw that it was just a pair of earrings instead of an engagement ring, there was slight disappoint with that and it was in that moment that I realised I was ready to marry Jake, I just had to find out if he was…

I had been out of the town the last couple of days for work, one of the other area managers had called in with a family emergency and I was asked to check on her stores and I agreed hoping down the line she would do the same thing for me.

I was went to return home tomorrow but I powered through and got all the stores checked out a day early and headed home early to surprise Jake. I was still a couple of hours out from home and decided to call Emily in hopes of keeping me awake to make the drive home.

“Taylor!” I heard her exclaim and I could tell she had been drinking.

“You’re drunk”

“Am not!”

“Whatever, what are you doing?”

“Sarah and Penny are over, it would have been better if you were here but I will talk to you about that later” which meant it was something to do with the married man she was seeing, Sarah and Penny didn’t know.

Sarah and Penny knew about one of them a year or so ago and they both through a fit trying to make Emily see what it would feel like to be on the other side but Emily couldn’t picture it and when they tried to pull me in I didn’t say anything because I was seeing Dom on the other side. They ignored us for a week or so before coming back and apologising for everything they said and it was in that moment we decided to hide our wrong doings from the two of them.

Emily ended up putting the phone on speaker and I was laughing at the antics that the three girls were up to and it was great to have on the drive home, I knew I should have just stayed in the hotel and headed home in the morning but I missed Jake.

Sarah and Penny filled me in on the double date they both went on the other night and I was happy for them, there were moments that they hated they were single while I was in a happy and stable relationship with Jake but I told them it wasn’t all it cracked up to be causing us all to laugh at it.

I please to hear how happy they were just talking about the guys, turns out they were friends that had gone to college together but yet they lived in separate towns while one of them was in town visiting but they didn’t care. I was so happy for them, I didn’t say it but it was in this moment that I thought that maybe Emily would see this and realise she needs to stop fooling around and settle down but I didn’t voice it on the phone.

I finally made it home and sat in the car for a couple of minutes attempting to say goodbye to the girls but it was obvious they wanted me to go over there but I told them I would come see them tomorrow and we would do dinner.

Once I was finally off the phone I got out of the car and headed inside happy with the thought of curling up in bed with Jake’s arms around me, it was what I missed most with being away for work and I’m just glad neither one of travel for work that much.

I had a feeling he would be asleep considering all the lights were off but when I entered the bedroom I dropped my bag staring at the scene in front of me.

Emily’s POV

The past two weeks with Dom out of town has seen a change in Taylor, at first I thought Jake had proposed but there was a lack of ring on her finger.

I questioned her about it and she said that things were back to normal and she was happy, she was content with what she had and realised that she didn’t Dom to make her relationship perfect.

As much as I was annoyed I was now the only one in the wrong I was pleasantly surprised with how much things changed in the two weeks and I was incredibly happy for her.

Taylor was my childhood best friend and we even made sure we went to colleges that were close enough we could see each other regularly and we did, and we made it work.

I knew Taylor wasn’t happy with what I was doing with my life and she would regularly tell me I was afraid of commitment, maybe I was but I was happy and that’s all that mattered.

My phone rang and I wanted to throw it against the wall, Jackson had decided he didn’t want to leave his wife, turns out he was only willing to leave if it meant he got to keep me. I didn’t want that so he went back to his wife and told him everything, everything including me and our relationship.

Jackson’s wife was regularly calling me to bitch me out for being a horrible, jealous person but I was sick of defending myself to her. Yes I may have stepped into their relationship but if I was home wrecker wouldn’t she want a divorce from him?

As much as I wanted to spend the night with Taylor and confide in her as to what was going on I also wanted to get incredibly drunk and Taylor was out of town for work. In the end I rang Sarah and Penny and they didn’t even question my motives for a midweek girls’ night and it wasn’t long until they were at my house with bottles of vodka in hand.

I ordered pizza and then the three of us were sitting there eating pizza, drinking and catching up.

It was a good night and the only thing that was missing was Taylor and when my phone rang and it was her we all squealed in delight before I answered it.

We were on the phone for a while and I got lost in my thoughts as Sarah and Penny filled Taylor in on what I had already heard.

I could tell Taylor was trying to push us off the phone when she was rushing to make plans with us tomorrow night.

“Alright I’m beat” I said once Taylor had hung up on us.

Sarah and Penny agreed and we headed off to our respective rooms for the night to get some sleep. I thought it was going to be easy to fall asleep but there was something off with tonight and all my worries about Jackson and his annoying wife were preventing me from falling asleep.

I was lying there on my bed tossing and turning for who knows how long when someone begun banging on my front door incredibly loud. I climbed out of bed and left the room to find Sarah and Penny standing in the doorway to the guest room, I looked at them before heading for the front door hoping they would follow.

Yes we were all female and all drunk but I hoped three drunk girls could take on whoever was at my front door, I opened it and my heart broke.

Taylor was standing there clearly crying with a bag in her hand, she dropped the bag before throwing her arms around me and begun crying harder against me. I had no idea what was going on or what happened but this was my best friend, hell she was more like my sister than anything and I hated that she was like this.

The silence was broken by the sound of Taylor’s phone, she groaned before pulling away. “Make it shut up” she complained before making her way over to the couch and lying down.

I grabbed her bags and dug around for her phone, I noticed it was Jake calling her. I quickly silenced it and it was then I noticed all the calls and message from Jake.

Now it was only a 20 minute drive between Taylor and Jake’s house and mine that many calls and messages from Jake in the span of at least 20 minutes is a lot and I wondered what happened.

I turned Taylor’s phone off and walked over to where she was on the couch, “come get some sleep”

She nodded and stood up to follow me to my room while Sarah and Penny went back to the guest room. Taylor didn’t say anything while she got changed and climbed into my bed, as much as I wanted to know what happened she was in no position to talk. In the end I walked over and climbed in beside her to get some sleep.

“Just leave me alone Jake, I don’t care what you have to say!” I woke up to the sound of Taylor’s voice, I opened my eyes and found her pacing at the foot of the bed and she was on the phone, to Jake.

She let out a groan of frustration before hanging up and it look liked she was trying to hold back another batch of tears.

“Tay…” I spoke softly hoping not to startle her, she turned and looked at me. “What happened?”

“I went home and…he was in bed….” I watched as she struggled to speak and hold back her tears, I couldn’t take it.

“Tay what happened?”

“He was having sex with someone else…” I was silent, I didn’t know what to say.