When he’d lost the weight he put on after finding out, he’d sat down and thought hard about where to go with his marriage. He’d been watching Kelly closely recently, and his gut feeling was the affair she’d begun with one of her co-workers had now ended. Her late nights, secretive calls and texts had finished, as had all the ‘overtime’ she’d been claiming to work.
She must really consider Dalton a fool if she thought a trained police officer could fall for her lies and dodgy accounts of where she’d been.
Once Dalton caught a whiff of a lie, it only enticed him to look further into her claims, easily spotting when she lied. He didn’t have to follow her, but he did, just to see it with his own eyes. He needed to see the man she was fucking behind his back, to compare himself to the new bloke and see what he was offering her that Dalton seemingly didn’t.
The truth was, the new guy wasn’t a Greek god. He was just a normal bloke like him. Dalton would even have been slimmer than him at the time, although that soon changed. The fact she’d chosen him and it wasn’t because of his looks, it made Dalton look deeper within himself to see what the problem was.
He’d grown tired of creeping around his own home, so he shut the door a little too loudly, and then kicked off his shoes in the entrance hallway before walking into the kitchen and putting his gym clothes on a quick rinse cycle. He was just putting the kettle on when he heard Kelly behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at her as she leaned against the doorframe in her PJs. “Hey. You all ready for bed?”
“It’s eight.” She curled her hand around the belt of her dressing gown as she shifted from one foot to the other.
Dalton bit his lip, knowing she was ready to sit down at last and talk. He’d tried before, but only received lies about being tired, or been brushed off for the bath or the latest book she was reading. Anything basically to not talk to him. About the house and his chores, yeah, she could talk all night, but about what was going on between them, he had no chance. Tonight, he could tell by her hesitation and how nervous she was that she was about to divulge something important.
“Eight’s not really late, Kelly. We used to stay up till three in the morning and still get up for work the next day.”
“That was when we were nineteen, not thirty. Things change.”
“No need to tell me, I know.” Dalton and Kelly met when they were at school. He was shy, she was loud. They hit it off and became friends but nothing more until they left for college. They shared the same bus into town every morning and began dating not long after. It felt natural and easy. They’d been together ever since. “Do you want a cup of tea?”
“Yeah, okay.” Kelly sat down at the kitchen table, looking at her hands twisting around each other nervously.
Dalton sighed as he stirred in her sugar. “You okay? You seem down.” She’d been down like this for the last three weeks—that was when the ‘overtime’ stopped, i.e. her relationship with Richard, her ‘friend’ from work.
“I'm just tired.”
For fuck’s sake, Kelly! Just be truthful and tell me.
“Look.” Dalton placed her cup in front of her and sat down, taking her hand in one of his. Yes, he hated what she’d done, but he didn’t hate her. “You're not okay. Just tell me and we can sort it out together. I've been trying to get you to talk to me for months. Please, just talk to me, Kelly.”
She fell silent for a long moment, then he saw a tear slip from her eye, landing on their joined hands. She quickly wiped her face and looked away, not even able to make eye contact with him. “I… I… I'm not happy.” She blurted the last bit out hurriedly in a big whoosh of air. “I haven’t been for a long time, but the last six months have been the worst.” She continued rushing out her words, seeming to be afraid if she stopped she wouldn’t find the strength to continue. “I love you, Dalton, but our marriage… it’s not been a real marriage in a long time. Over three years.”
Dalton stared at their hands and wondered what the tipping point was three years ago. Nothing sprang to mind.
“You don’t know, do you? You don’t even know what I'm talking about. That’s how important it is to you. See! This is what I'm talking about, Dalton.” She removed her hand from his and brushed back her blonde hair. “Do you even know how long we’ve been living like best friends?”
“We’ve always been best friends.”
“No, we were friends, then we became lovers. The two are very different. Right now, and for the past three years, we’ve been flatmates, Dalton. Nothing but friends who share a house. I mean, I know you're not the most sexual person, and we’ve always had an issue with me wanting it more than you, but really, three years?”
“Three years?” Dalton sat back in shock. “It’s not been that long.”
“Yes, it has!” she shouted as she stood up from him. “I enjoy sex, everyone does, and I get some people want it more than others, but I don’t class myself as a nympho. You just don’t need it like I do. Is it me?” She looked at her feet and Dalton felt the need to reach out to her.
“No.” Well, okay, yes. It was what she’d done which was the issue, not her in general. She was pretty, good figure, sunny personality which always brightened up the room. “You're lovely. There's nothing wrong with you. Yes, the past six months have been difficult—”
“Three years, Dalton. Three years.”
“Okay, okay, but what I meant was the past six months have been worse and not just down to the lack of sex.” Say it, she won't. “I don’t know what to say. Is this why you're so upset? The sex? Is that so important to you that you're…” Dalton paused, he didn’t feel like it was right to just slip in the words ‘fucking someone else.’ “You're so unhappy?”
“It’s not just the sex.” She sat back down and took a long drink of her tea. “You don’t want me.” She slapped her hand on the table when Dalton tried to step in and deny it. “You don’t. I was your first. Maybe it’s just not working out the way we thought it would do. We’re still young enough to move on and find someone else, Dalton. You could find someone you want to be with.”
“I want you. I married you.”
“Dalton…” She paused, tapping her fingernails on the table. “You masturbate, okay. I didn’t want to be this personal, but you do. You want sex, you just choose not to have it with me. You think I don’t know you like to watch porn and jerk off when I go to bed? I do. Okay, at first it pissed me off, then I just got past the whole thing, but when our sex life started to lull even more and nothing changed, hell, what am I supposed to think, Dalton?”
“I don’t really watch a lot of it.” Dalton felt his face burn up and he had to step away and grab a glass of water. Okay, yes, he watched porn occasionally on the internet. It wasn’t a big deal and he did it like once or twice a month at most. And always when he was alone, or so he thought. He felt guilty. Guilty for jacking off while she’d been fucking Richie boy at the office. “Sorting myself out occasionally isn’t like I'm having an affair or anything, Kelly.”
She threw the cup at him, tea spilling across the room and the cup smashing beside his foot on the tiles. “I knew it! You knew I was messing around and did nothing. You knew I was seeing someone and yet you couldn’t be fucking arsed to even confront me. You did nothing. You just let it happen. Most men would have acted, Dalton. They would have found the guy and beat the shit out of him. You didn’t even care enough to say anything to me. You could have shouted at me, told me to stop, sorted out this shit. You didn’t do anything. You really don’t care, do you? I mean nothing to you. You were quite happy to let me fuck someone else rather than be with me yourself.”
Dalton was struck dumb for a moment. So, this was all his fault then? His fault she fucked around? It was never her fault, just his. “Are you blaming me for you fucking someone at work? Sure, I could have acted out, hunted him down, beat him up—probably got fired for it. I could have shouted at you, left, but I didn’t. I was too hurt to do anything, Kelly, and all I kept thinking about was what did he have which I didn’t. Obviously now I know it was just his cock you wanted.” He knelt down, picking up the pieces of broken china. “You could have talked to me, Kelly. We’ve always been able to talk. You didn’t have to find someone else to make a point.” He stood up, placing the broken cup in the bin before turning to her. “Are you leaving me?”
“Leaving you?” She laughed through her tears. “Dalton… I’ve been shagging someone else for five months. Five whole months. You should be chucking me out on my arse.”
“Is it over?”
She nodded slowly.
“And you're sad about that, right?” He could see she was. “Is it more than sex?”
Again, another quiet nod.
“Does he love you?”
Another nod.
“Right. And you love him?”
She sighed, looking away from him, but nodding.