Page 2 of Unmoored
It’s weird, though. George doesn’t usually want photo evidence. Or naughty videos, or even sexy texts in the middle of the day like most boyfriends.
Is he finally realizing that there’s more to life than the corporate grind? Getting tired of staying out all night with his damn buddies and his damn clients, acting like he works his ass off?
With a glimmer of hope, I open my eyes… but he’s shoving the phone in my face. “Jesus,” I grumble, swatting his hand away. “Use yours.”
“You know I can’t have that stuff inmycloud. Just tell me your password. Or here, let me use Face ID?—”
My sixth sense is tingling.Something’s up.
“You don’t have to unlock it to take a photo, asshat.” I snatch my phone away from him—and roll onto my back.
“Eden!” George groans. “God, you’re so accident-prone. Now there’s a wet spot. Onmyside of the bed. Go get a cloth.”
He helpfully reaches out to take my phone out of my hand again. Instead, I scoot back against George’s pillows and sit up to thumb through my notifications.
“Eden!” George snaps, but I can’t miss the panicked tone in his voice. “You’re making a mess.”
There it is: a voice note from George, sent at four in the morning. I tap the play button. George freezes like a deer in the headlights as my phone blasts tinny music and laughter—and George’s most obnoxiously drunk voice.
“Bruuuuce! Hey, listen, bud, I need a favour.”
My heart sinks. It’s not evenforme, is it?
“Wrong number. Sorry. I was just gonna save you the trouble and delete it—” George is trying his best smooth-talking businessman act, and I’m not fooled. The more he scrambles, the more I want to hear this.
“I’m gonna crash on your couch. Just long enough to sober up before I go home to… the old backup plan.”
Wait, what?
More laughter fills the air.
The voice note cuts off. All that’s left is the deafening silence in our bedroom… and the fire of humiliation in my cheeks. The slow, icy, creeping sickness that crawls into the pit of my stomach. I turn to look at George, but he’s suddenly very interested in the view out the bedroom window.
I’m not surprised.
And that’s the worst part: I always knew he was only ever half-in.
“You don’t understand.” George throws off the covers, standing up abruptly to stride back and forth across the bedroom floor.
“I understand everything I need to,” I tell him, my hands tightening around the covers to stop them from shaking.
George turns to look at me with that calculating look in his eye, like he’s trying to rescue a business negotiation that’s going south. “But?—”
“George.” I point at the bedroom door. “Get the fuck out. We’re done.”
We just traded roles. A weight I didn’t even realize I was carrying lifts from my shoulders and settles onto his, right where it always belonged.
“You don’t mean?—”
“Oh, I do.”
“I’ve invested so much into you?—”
“Invested,” I echo, past the fury that tightens my chest. I’m just an acquisition. A pretty little artist for him to trot out at family dinners and office Christmas parties—which, for him, are the same thing.
It’s all clear now. And so is my path: freedom.
George shakes his head. “Think about it, Eden,” he tells me condescendingly. “I could find a trophy husband anywhere. This is your chance to succeed in life.”
