I looked to Amy and the stunned expression said she hadn't expected this either.
"I was at Stefan's house."
"Yup, and what happened?" The softness that had crept into his face earlier had completely vanished now.
"We … we slept together."
"How many times?"
"Is that really necessary?" I asked. It was bad enough having this conversation without admitting to him the number of times. Nothing about my answer would heal us and in my opinion there was no point making this hurt worse than it was already destined to.
"Yeah, it is. Tell me." Seeing this commanding side of Richard wasn't normal and it was scaring the hell out of me.
"Twice."
He nodded knowing. "Yeah, so, you must have felt so guilty about it. Never wanted to hurt me so you hid him from me. Went out with him, went back to his place and then had sex with him. Twice. Am I missing anything? Did you do anything before yesterday?"
"Yesterday was the first time we had sex since we were together."
"And there it is. The all too specific wording of what you precisely didn't do."
"Richard, I don't know if this is where the focus should be. Grey has just given a very large piece of herself to you." Amy chimed in, trying to reign in Richard's sudden erratic reactions.
"I get that, Amy. But don't you agree this is a little late? In my opinion, Grey had plenty of opportunities to give me even a slice of the life she once had. She chose not to, until it was all piled on top of her. And now, I want to know it all." He looked from Amy back to me. "What else happened, Grey?"
"We hugged, and we've kissed. It wasn't every day or anything, but it has happened a few times. For the last couple of weeks we've been having lunch together every day at work. Either he comes to the salon, or on Friday's I've gone to his work since I have the day off."
"For the love of Christ." Richard wiped his hands over his face and jumped to his feet. "You've had an ongoing emotional affair with a man you have never stopped loving."
"Richard!" I tried to gain his attention but he was already off on a rant that wouldn't have been stopped even if the building were to suddenly catch on fire.
"Please, let's calm down and talk rationally about this." Amy got to her feet and took a step toward me. It didn't matter that she was a few inches shorter than Richard, her actions were purely protective. I knew Richard would never physically harm me, but Amy was on a mission to save the part of me that was in the most danger-my heart.
"I don't really want to calm down, Amy. And quite honestly, I don't want to sit around here anymore, Grey. I understand that you needed Amy's support to share some of this. What I don't get is why the hell you couldn't trust me. Why it took so long to even know you had ever been pregnant, married, or hell, even in love before! So, how about this? I'll psychoanalysis the situation for us! You never said a word about anything because you never let it go. You've been waiting for him to come back and make it right. I was just the moron that didn't see what was right in front of him."
Before either of us could respond, Richard swung the door open and slammed it shut as he ran out. The shock settled in first and almost immediately the tears broke free and the hysterics took over. Amy wrapped her arms around me and let me cry on her shoulder. All while I tried to process how the past twenty four hours had completely flipped my life upside down.
When I was finally able to calm down a bit, I called my brother for a ride. I didn't need to explain the situation, as soon as he heard the whimpering in my voice, he was on his way. Amy gave me one more tight squeeze and one final piece of advice to part.
"Have faith, Grey. What's meant to be, always will be."
Right now it did nothing to solve my problem but I thanked her nonetheless. By the time I made my way outside Jayden was parked at the building entrance. He stood next to the passenger door and I wasted no time running to him, a fresh new wave of tears soaked into his shirt. By the time he managed to get me into the car I had no choice but to tell him all that happened. He never once seemed surprised by all that had happened between me and Stefan, but I felt his disappointment circling around his car. I hated the way I couldn't manage to stop hurting people lately but something told me it wasn't over with yet.
"Do you know where Richard went?" He asked when we pulled up outside of my house.
I shrugged my shoulders, staring at the apartment building that no longer felt like home to me.