Cat Out of The Bag
CASSIE
The sound of annoyed and frenzied honks sprinkled the morning air like a symphony. It was always like a domino effect. I suspected some drivers just did it for fun.
“Damn it!” I cursed softly as I held up my wrist to check the time on my gold Cartier watch. Why did I allow my fiancé to drag me back to bed? Today out of all days at that. “Move! Move! Move!!” Honking my horn, I yelled at the driver in front of me and he stuck his hairy arm out his car window and gave me the finger. “Whatever, Grandpa!” Keeping my hands on the steering wheel, I kept my eyes on the road.
“Dammit!” My foot suddenly hit the brakes and I swerved to the side and prepared to make a highly illegal turn. “How could I forget my laptop?”
My Jaguar turned smoothly into my driveway and I hopped out, leaving the engine running. Dashing through the front door, I took the stairs two at a time, frowning when I heard loud voices drifting from the bedroom. My journalistic instinct kicked in and I removed my Jimmy Choo heels and padded closer to the half-opened door. “Kace, how could you??” That voice was the distinct voice of my best friend, Scarlet. “After everything I sacrificed, how could you do this to me?”
Fear knotted my guts, gnawing away my sanity and freezing my soul. What had he done? What had she sacrificed and why? To make matters worse, he didn’t make a secret that he hated her more than a kid who hated greens. I’d have to force him just to greet her and even that was done with a concerted reluctant effort.
What was she doing in our house- our bedroom, when I wasn’t home? Well, that’s where I came in.
My nana always said if you stepped into a bullpen chances are you’d step on crap. She also said not to borrow trouble and I was about to have an overdraft. If I had half a brain, now would be a good time to take it out and play with it. But, all sense had fled and my curiosity had taken over.
Sweating like a politician in church, I flattened my back against the wall outside the bedroom door, I strained my burning ears and listened in, trying to resist the urge to scratch my nose.
When I left the house for work, Kace was sleeping blissfully, basking in the afterglow of our methodical lovemaking. Like everything Kace did, our coupling was orderly. Since he was my first, I had nothing to compare it with. Hearing my friends talk about their sex lives, I just wondered if there was more.
“Answer me, damn it?!” Scarlet screeched.
I didn’t like her tone but like her, needed to hear his response like I needed the Ravens to score their winning goal. What had Kace done to her and why did she feel entitled to an explanation like a nagging wife?
He mumbled something and the drumming pulse in my ears drowned it out. The shock choked me like a fist shoved down my throat. I should storm in there and demand an explanation from both of them.
“How could you sleep around with me and my sister?! That’s really messed up!” That sounded like Victoria, Scarlett’s young sister. Was she in on the inquisition as well?? “It’s bad enough I had to share you with Cassie! Now, I find out I was sharing you with Scar too?!”My heart clenched painfully as my mind grappled with reality and I dragged air into my screaming lungs. felt impaled by shock. Unable to breathe or move. No, it couldn’t be! I was hearing things. Hallucinating. My overactive imagination was playing tricks on me…
Breathe Cassie, breathe…
I couldn’t give myself away until I got the full picture. But like a Da Vinci painting, everything was slowly taking shape. “What’s messed up is that both of you came after me!” Kace snapped. “When you both know that I’m with your best friend! What does that say about you??” He wasn’t wrong but he should have said ‘us’. He was very much a part of the messed-up equation. “Well, we are both pregnant from you! What is your precious Cassie going to say about that?” Scarlet snapped back and the ground moved under my feet. Huh, pretty boy??!” Talk about hitting two birds with one stone. The guy sure shoots to fill.
“What?!” Victoria’s shriek could have woken the dead. “You’re pregnant?!”
“I beat you at your own game,” her sister replied, sounding like the cat that slurped the last dollop of the cream. “You went after him even after I told you to back off.”
“Only because you wanted him all to yourself, you backstabbing skank!”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from a disease-infested whore like you!”
A scuffle ensued and shrieks, slaps, and screeching filled the air. “Mind the vase damn it!” Kace yelled but they paid him no mind. A vase crashing to the floor punctuated the thuds and screams. “Stay away from those night lamps. I bought them in India and they cost more than your rent!!”
On their own violation, my feet slinked toward the stairs. I’d stepped into the bullpen and walked straight into the muck.
It would have been funny. Two girls, my best friend, and her sister, were fighting over my man, and yet, I was the one slinking away like Olivia Pope.
Crazy.
It was too much all at once.
Racing down the stairs, I forced my tears to do a backflip until I drove out of the gate and safely cruised down the highway. A lump was stuck in my throat and tears stung my eyes. “I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry,” I repeated as I furiously blinked back the tears, that tried to escape my hazel eyes and ruin my picture-perfect makeup.
Never in my life did I ever think that Kace, my Kace Miles, would be capable of doing something like this to me. If Victoria and Scarlet were upset, on a scale of one to ten my rage was on a twenty.
I thought he loved me. After all, he had told me countless times! And I loved him more than anything. My world revolved around him. I ate, breathed, and slept, Kace Miles. He was the center of my thoughts.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an iron fist until it turned to mush. How could the love of my life betray me? And with not only Scarlet but Victoria too. Well, Victoria was a well-known tramp that would give it up to anything with a penis. The sisters were famous for snatching each other’s boyfriends, so why was I surprised? Did I think they wouldn’t cross the line with me when they obviously couldn’t respect each other’s boundaries?
No words could explain how devastated I was. But enough of that. He wasn’t worth my tears. He'd already taken enough from me.
Ironically Spice Girls, Wanna Be was next on my playlist and instead of switching the song, I turned it up on high volume and to keep from crying, I laughed. I laughed like a maniac on crack.
So being the crazy that I am, I thought about what just happened back at the house and I was in stitches. I thought about all the random stuff that Kace did and it fueled more cackles. The way he chewed like he had a constant toothache. The way he walked like he had a walnut stuck in his butt. The way he grunted, cooed, and howled like a monkey when he climaxed.
“Let’s share the joke, gorgeous?” A blonde hunk at the traffic lights winked before speeding off in his red Porsche.
With all the hysterical laughter, I must have looked like I'd escaped from an asylum. Without knowing it, I found myself in the parking lot of my office building. After having a good laugh, my sides were aching and my makeup was running. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop. I was going to make a mess of the presentation and, I had been trying to snag this deal for the longest time. Not to mention that in my haste to get away I’d left my laptop. That only sent me into another fit of laughter.
“Gosh!” I covered my mouth and giggled. “What a mess!”
Sighing, I smoothed my palms on my navy pencil skirt. Taking out my toiletry bag, I freshened up my make-up fixed the bow of my cream silk blouse, and straightened my jacket. Smoothing my hair back with a brush and neatly pulling it back into a perfect bun, without a strand out of place, I took a deep breath and slid out of the car, then made a beeline to the restrooms to check my appearance one last time. When it passed muster, I stepped out and mentally prepared myself to face the onslaught in the boardroom.
I had alerted my colleague and close friend Chelsea to set up beforehand. We had been working on the project together so she was the best person to help. Stopping outside the room, I gulped down half a bottle of water and went inside to face the music. Everyone was already seated and it appeared they had started without me. “Cassie, just the person I was hoping to see.” My boss Kevin Walters looked over his horn-rimmed glasses. “My office now!” He growled, his chair screeching before he marched off ahead of me. I threw a questioning look at my colleague and close friend Chelsea but she just smirked. “Well, run along then. You will find out soon enough what it’s about..” she pouted and shooed me away. “To save you the trouble, I have already packed your things in a box so no need to worry about that, I left it at security.” With that, she turned and continued with her stolen presentation. A presentation I’d worked my butt off to put together. With my head held high, I followed Kevin Walters to his corner office and wasn’t even offered a seat.“Don’t bother sitting I’ll make it quick.” He threw a bonded document on his desk and scowled at me. “I know that you have been planning to open your own advertising company and that you thought you would get away with stealing my clients.”
“But I-” she tried to explain.
“Save it, Cassandra!” he clenched his jaw and tugged his hair. “Chelsea told us everything! At least she is a loyal employee-unlike you.” He sneered. “I trusted you, Cassie. You were the best Account Manager that I had and this is how you thank me??”
Tentatively, I stepped closer to the desk with humility. “Please allow me to explain-”
“I don’t want to hear it. Just get out! Take your things and leave! Now, before I get security to escort you out of the building.”
“Fine,” I conceded. “You can believe Chelsea, but one day you’re going to see the truth.” Turning on my heel, I stormed out the door.
Could the day get any worse? I thought to myself as I went down the elevator. My wedding was supposed to be in two months and as if that wasn’t enough, now I was out of a job. At least if I was fired for a valid reason but Chelsea twisted the truth and had Kevin wrapped around her finger.
Where would I go now? Kace has taken care of me since we moved from our off-campus apartment and moved to his house. I was ashamed to say, I was a kept woman. He owned the house, my cars, the clothes on my back, and my life. He allowed me to do with my salary whatever I wanted and I'd sent it religiously to my middle-class low-income parents. They needed it.
I certainly couldn’t go home. My parents would fuss and fret and I didn’t want to burden them. That wasn’t an option. Standing in the underground parking, I glanced at my phone as it rang, Kace’s name flashing tauntingly on the screen.
“Yes?” I snapped.
“Hey, honey. It’s me. Are you okay?” Kace tested the waters. “I thought I heard the housekeeper say that you’d returned home but I didn’t see you. I checked everywhere. You should have woken me. Or maybe she was mistaken?”
“I’m perfect, sweetie, just having a bad day,” I effused with exaggerated sweetness. ”You must be mistaken I didn’t return home. I’ve been busy all morning. Remember I had that important presentation?”
“Can I take you to lunch?” The dunce thought he was in the clear. That I was still the clueless airhead. “I’ll try my best to cheer you up?”
“Sounds good,” I played along. “I’ll meet you at our usual spot?”
“See you soon, sweetheart. I love you.”
I almost choked on my water. “I love you too, sweetie.” If he wanted to play, we could play. Let’s see how long Kace would keep up this charade.
After all, I had nothing to lose.
