Fire on Fire

15. Say it out loud

"Awww, hey, Honeybunch, I wasn't expecting you." Nancy welcomed him with a wide grin. "Come on in, I was just cleaning up ..."

"What happened?" Alexander asked when, entering, he saw the mess her living room was in. It was as if there'd been a fight of some sort. Had she and Emma come to blows? Nah, neither of them had bruises.

"Oh, you know ..." Nancy laughed, throwing some plastic plates and glasses in a trash bag, "the girls can get a little ... messy when they've had too much wine."

"So this was you girls just ... I don't know, dancing or something?"

"More or less, yeah." She offered him one of her pearly white smiles that Alexander always considered a sign that she was getting ready to devour her prey. "Why, what did you think happened?"

He pursed his lips, considering his chances. There was no use in beating around the bush, was there? "I don't know, maybe you decided you're not okay with our arrangement anymore, so you took it out on Emma."

Nancy put down the trash bag, barely hiding a snide smirk. "Oh, so we're choosing truth today, huh?"

"Don't act like you don't know. It was your idea, wasn't it?"

She clenched her jaw. "You were drooling like a dog in front of a juicy steak. It was pathetic. I said eat the cookie, once or twice. I didn't say start a whole relationship."

"Nancy, you basically gave me permission to cheat on you, and now you get upset because I did?" Alexander defended, albeit feeling guilty for lying to Emma. She was so torn by her dirty conscience, yet she had no reason to. Their entire arrangement had been licensed by Nancy herself, who'd known all along and had even contributed to starting it.

Nancy who crossed her arms over her chest, taking a stern stance. "May I remind you that, the amendment you asked for merely states that you are allowed to go to bed with her? There was absolutely no mention of any kind of different involvement being allowed."

"Well, I did get involved, alright?" Alexander admitted, then sighed. "But I guess that, whatever you told her last night, it worked. Because she didn't even let me try to go further."

"Oh, boo-hoo, the cheater got his heart broken. How sad." Nancy scoffed, pretending to be crying.

"First of all, I didn't cheat," he said sternly, "you cannot cheat when there wasn't a relationship to begin with, don't you think? Or do I need to remind you that this," he pointed at himself and her, "isn't real?"

"It doesn't have to be real to look perfect."

"Well, if I recall right, you took the other side of that amendment quite gladly."

"The difference between you and me, Honeybunch, is that I stuck to our agreement, which involved mere sex. You're the one that went ahead and started dating someone else."

"We're not dating," he muttered under his breath.

Nancy laughed. "No? So you give a whole apartment to all the women you sleep with? That must be really expensive."

Alexander arched an eyebrow, surprised. "How ..."

"Oh, come on, you think I wouldn't keep an eye on my investment?" She scoffed.

"You had me followed?"

Nancy reached for her bag, and took a small stack of photos out of it, which she handed to him. All of them showed him and Emma together, being intimate, all were taken from directly outside his apartment, the last ones from right outside the place he'd wanted Emma to rent. "I told you since day one, Honeybunch." Nancy gritted her teeth. "Nothing, no one will stand between me and my goals. When you came to me asking for an amendment to our contract, I thought ok, he's a man, he needs it." She clenched her jaw. "I should have known the lost puppy act she's so good at would fool you, too."