Not What She Expected

It took about two weeks for Lainey to accept the situation in her mind, and until that happened, Daryl couldn't get the woman back into his bed. When she did go back to his bed, it still wasn't as good as it was on the first night, Daryl noted.

A couple of weeks after Blake filed, he got a phone call from his mother-in-law. He had always gotten along well with his in-laws, so he had no idea what to expect.

"You pulled the trigger awfully quick, Blake. What are we missing?" his mother-in-law asked.

"What has she told you happened, Mom?" he asked in return.

"She said she made a mistake on one day, and you filed the next. Really, that quickly?" she responded. "What's this mistake that she's trying not to tell me about?"

"What she's trying not to tell you is that she cheated on me... three times over a night and the next morning. She and the guy across the hall had been getting too friendly, I felt, and I warned her that one slip was one too many. I don't think she thought I'd jump this quickly, but she broke my heart... and my trust," Blake explained.

"I'm sorry, Blake. I knew you'd tell me the truth," his mother-in-law said.

Blake picked up more hours at the pharmacy in an attempt to keep busy. Away from work, he spent more time at the gym, but less time with friends. Several friends tried to step up for him once they found out about the pending divorce, but the once-affable Blake was fast becoming a hermit.

Although Daryl had no fear of Blake from a physical standpoint, he still kept his distance from Lainey's husband, fearing that if Blake got irrational, he might have to defend himself and hurt the smaller man. That certainly wouldn't help his case with Lainey, who still seemed to be holding back with him since the divorce filing.

Blake rarely talked to either Lainey or Daryl when they saw each other in the hallway or out in the parking lot. His wife was shocked at how quickly he gave up on her.

"I thought he loved me enough to fight to keep me. I'm not exactly chopped liver, you know," she said to her mother in a phone call.

"No, you're not chopped liver, but with your attitude you're not exactly filet mignon either," her mother answered.

Lainey gasped.

"Whose side are you on, Mom?"

"You may be my daughter, but if I'm taking sides, I'm taking Blake's. He did nothing to deserve your disrespect. I thought Dad and I raised you better than that," her mother said.

With everything happening, Lainey didn't remember that she and Blake had been trying to have a baby when she started having sex with Daryl. She hadn't taken a birth control pill in more than three months. She never gave it a second thought when she woke up nauseous three mornings in a row.

"You're on birth control, right?" Daryl asked.

"Oh. My. God," Lainey whispered.

Lainey's attorney tried to get the divorced delayed until after the child was born, but Blake's attorney was smart enough to point out that the pregnancy occurred after Daryl started sleeping with the woman, meaning the child definitely wasn't Blake's.

Daryl was lying on his back in the dark, listening to the sound of his first child suckling on Lainey's left breast. Although he wasn't thrilled with the thought of being a father when Lainey announced she was pregnant 18 months before, the actuality of the baby was much better than he anticipated. He quickly fell in love with the infant.

Unfortunately for Daryl, his feelings for the baby easily outstripped his feelings for the woman. Although he lusted after her, he certainly didn't love her. The sex ranged from good to great, but outside of that, the two were friends at best. Why did her ex-husband have to be such a fucking Boy Scout? Daryl would have preferred Lainey to stay married to Blake and just make occasional forays across the hall, but Blake didn't like that idea and had her served divorce papers before that weekend was over.

Lainey's thoughts at that moment weren't that much different from those of Daryl. She, too, thought the sex with Daryl was good to great, but she also would have preferred to have stayed with Blake. She loved Blake, and she would have loved to have given Blake a child. Instead...

Karma would have had Blake thinking about Lainey or Daryl at that exact moment, plotting revenge of some sort. He was too busy for that sort of thing at the moment, though, being in the middle of a threesome with two young women.

Maybe the best revenge is living a good life.