The Man Next Door

Chapter 21

HEY GUYS! I'm back for 2 weeks cause I'm on mid semester break! will try and update a bit more during this time :) Enjoy!

They both lay there frozen for a few seconds upon hearing the news. Meredith's hands were still in his hair as she looked at him with wide, fearful eyes. Her expression of shock mirrored his; they just wanted to go back into their bubble of sex and bliss.

"Derek," Meredith croaked after a few, very long, seconds.

Her words broke him out of his frozen state and he looked at her lovingly for a moment before forcing himself back to reality. "Hide. Hide in my closet, and I'll get rid of her."

Before she could respond he pulled her in for a quick, yet hard and passionate kiss and bolted out of bed to pick up their clothes that had been scattered around the room the previous night.

"Derek, if you think for one second that I'm going to hide in your closet like a teenager you are sadly mistaken." Meredith said firmly, trying to stand her ground. No matter how devastated she was about the fact that his wife was here, while she was naked in his bedroom, she did not want to stoop to that level. "We'll just tell them that I came here to practice some old lines with you, you know, get your acting skills back up. We ran late and I fell asleep or something." She said with a nod, proud that she came up with a viable excuse so quickly.

"Meredith, I don't want to hide you either, believe me," He said softly as he stopped his tidying and cupped her cheek in his palm. "But the doctors said that she needed to be in a stable environment for a while when she came home. Rose is, well, she's like a ticking bomb at this point, one thing that implies that her suspicions of me cheating are true and BANG she's back to her over possessiveness."

"But-" Meredith began to say. It was sounding a lot like he was choosing Rose and just wanted her as his dirty mistress. She was not going to have that. She would not become her character from the show.

He cut her off before she could voice these thoughts, placing the index finger of his over hand over her mouth. "Meredith, I love you and I want to be with you, but it will have to wait a bit. Just until Rose is stable enough that I can divorce her."

"But-" she began again. As much as she wanted Rose out of their lives in a peaceful manner, she didn't want to have to wait. They waited before, and he got himself in a car accident. If there was one thing Meredith learnt from that, it was to live life in the moment, YOLO or whatever. Unfortunately, fate had other plans as she was stopped by the sound of Tallulah banging at the door.

"Daddy, Daddy! Mommy's here! She's here and she wants to see you!"

"Just a minute T! Daddy's just in the bathroom!" shouted Derek before shoving Meredith's clothes into her hands and walking her back into his closet. With one last quick kiss on her lips his shut the door, leaving Meredith in darkness.

She sighed as she stood there running her hands along the wall near the door in an attempt to find a light. 'Thank the lord this is a walk in closet' she thought to herself when she finally found it. As she quickly began to dress herself, she moved closer to the door, trying to hear Derek and Tallulah.

"Good morning princess!" she heard Derek exclaim followed by a muffled 'humph'. Meredith smiled, he probably just lifted her up onto his waist. She loved how he was around his daughter, always so fun and supportive. Her mind couldn't help but wonder about how he would be with their children. 'Stop getting ahead of yourself Meredith!' she thought, 'he's still married for god sake!'

By this time she had finished putting on her pants and went to search her pile for her bra.

"Hello, Derek," she heard a female voice say. Rose. Meredith paused for a moment, feeling a tight knot being to form in her stomach. She had just slept with another woman's husband. The true weight of what they had done last night was just hitting her. The room suddenly began to feel warmer and she dropped her pile of clothes to the ground, frantically searching for her bra. She had to get out of this situation. She had to be patient and wait it out.