Stranded(8)

Once the ring was on her finger, Angie systematically set out to destroy Rafe and Grant’s bond. Grant stayed away because Angie would flirt shamelessly, teasing and taunting him, sometimes making unnecessary sexual innuendoes. Rafe shuddered when he remembered all the fights he and his ex had when he wanted to hang out with his friend outside of work. It eventually became an even bigger strain between him and Grant.

After a while, the sex with Angie wasn’t worth coming home for. He found himself staying late at the office just to have some peace. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to keep her happy, but whatever he did wasn’t enough, at least not for his wife. Scenes from the night that had changed their lives ran through his mind.

Rafe and Grant and gone out for some drinks after work with a few of their employees. They’d stayed out later than he intended. Grant had offered him a ride home because Rafe had had too many drinks to be comfortable behind the wheel of a car. When he pulled up to the house, he remembered he had some paperwork he wanted to give to Grant and asked him to come inside. The moment they walked in the door, they were confronted by an apparently furious Angie.

“Well, well, well, you finally made it back and this time you have the audacity to bring that man into my house.” Her words were slurred, making it obvious he wasn’t the only one who’d been drinking that night.

“This is my house too, and Grant is welcome in it anytime he wants to come over.”

She glared at him. “So that’s how it is? I should have known.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Angie?” Rafe demanded.

“Did your friend tell you he tried to come on to me?”

Rafe looked at Grant, whose face had turned beet red.

“That’s not true. I haven’t touched you since you became engaged to Rafe. For once tell the damn truth. It was the other way around. You’ve been making advances toward me.”

Rafe rarely saw Grant lose his temper and he was more inclined to believe his friend. “Angie, I don’t have time for your dramatics tonight.” He tried to walk past her, but she grabbed his arm.

“You believe him over me? Your own wife? Maybe this friendship,” she used air quotes, “you have is a little more than you claim it to be.” Angie had said some vicious things before, but this was outside of enough.

Rafe narrowed his eyes. “Are you implying what I think you are?”

Angie laughed with a maniacal gleam in her eyes. “Why not? You barely touch me anymore and you’re always with him.” She pointed to Grant. “The courts would be sympathetic toward me when they find out I’ve been married to a pillow biter who married me to cover up his homosexual affair.”

“Shut your mouth, you bitch!” Rafe raged.

She sneered. “Make me.”

Rafe didn’t know what made him do it, especially with Grant standing there, but he slammed Angie against the wall and covered her mouth in an angry kiss. He tore at her clothing, his anger driving him.

She returned his ardor with vehemence, gripping his shirt to bring him closer. Angie eventually tore her mouth away from his and looked over his shoulder to stare at Grant, who was walking out the door. “Where the hell are you going? Get your ass over here,” she commanded.

Rafe stiffened. Everything that had been instilled within him about the fundamentals of monogamy screamed how wrong her suggestion was. But there was another part of him that wanted to know what it would be like to share a woman with his best friend. Maybe it was the alcohol or perhaps it was some deep-seated fantasy he’d had all along, but he found himself looking at Grant. “Give her what she wants.”

Grant’s mouth gaped open. “I…I can’t.”

Angie’s smile was malicious. “Hmm, I suppose I was right about one of you then. You were always such a…gentleman when we dated.” She made the word gentleman seem like a dirty word.

It was just the thing to get Grant riled. He strode over to them and grabbed Angie. The next thing Rafe knew, the three of them were in bed. Grant and Rafe sucked, licked and fucked Angie throughout the hours of the night. It had been one of the most sexually fulfilling moments he’d ever experienced. Then it started. For months they shared his wife until Rafe discovered he and Grant weren’t the only ones she was screwing.

Rafe had come home one day to find her in bed with four men.

Angie didn’t look embarrassed at being caught. “You only have yourself to blame. This is what you started,” she’d said in her defense.

It was in that moment he realized he didn’t love her and never had. What had made the experience of his threesome so meaningful was his best friend…not her. It was easy to walk away from the marriage once he’d figured that out.