illicit affairs | Charlie Barber x Reader

chapter fifteen: cardigan

Enjoy your bonus content of 'illicit affairs' :)

----------------------

Lately, everything seemed to be gray. The days were lifeless and boring, having little to no motivation. Charlie could easily blame it on the day he left New York but let's face it, things were bad even in the place he considered home.

Before the hint of divorce was brought up, things weren't always the best with Nicole. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember when they last felt like a team. Usually, they always agreed, making decisions together and getting through life with their little family. If it was a decision about the next production at his company or a decision about Henry's school, they were always on the same page.

Until one day, they weren't.

They stopped doing a lot of things, actually. Discussing what could affect the family, future productions... Hell, they even stopped sleeping in the same bed together. Nicole, who was once his best friend, was now a stranger to him.

They just... drifted apart, which Charlie considered worse than a huge and unforgivable fight.

After months and months of them spending their nights apart, he tried to stay hopeful that whatever was left of their relationship was salvageable. That they could mend what was broken and be happy again...

Soon, things started to lose saturation, which led Charlie to bring Mary Ann into the picture.

She was his stage manager at Exit Ghost. Charlie always noticed the lingering eye she gave him while he spoke, the excuses to always touch his arm, and the excuses to always stay late with him. It was fairly obvious from the beginning that she had a crush on him. Charlie, being the good husband that he was, always ignored it.

But there was one particularly lonely night that he felt his weakest. The little hope he held onto for his marriage with Nicole was quickly running out the door and it was hard to deal with that fact. This seemed to infest his mind one late night while he was revising scripts at the theater.

Of course, Mary Ann had an excuse to stay behind. Looking back at it now, the excuse itself was atrocious. Normally, he would brush it off but since he was at an all time low, he played along.

What he thought was his "all time low" wasn't rock bottom for him, unfortunately.

It was when he offered to take her out for dinner and drinks, thanking her for all of her hard work with the shows. To be fair, she did do a lot for him. Like always, one thing led to another and Charlie found himself at her place. He was on top of her, trying to chase a feeling he hasn't felt for years...

It was a one-time occurrence, finding out that it made him feel worse from before. One thing led to another, he was finding himself being served with divorce papers and Nicole knowing about his incident.

Long story short, it was a bad time.

Going through his divorce with Nicole while trying to maintain a relationship with his son wasn't easy. Henry's "mom phase" seemed to be lasting longer than he thought. Flying back and forth from New York and California was exhausting. Charlie felt like it was sucking the life out of him, the idea of him becoming more and more of a stranger.

Charlie wanted nothing more than to feel better about himself, knowing that he could do whatever he wanted. Well, do whatever he wanted to a certain point. He could fuck whoever he wanted and he wouldn't have to answer to anyone about it. No guilt ripping through his chest on a daily basis... The days would start to have color again as he lived his life.