Meg O'Brien - Sacred Trust

“A few.” Halfway down the block I pause, adding, “We’re gonna share a whole lot more if you don’t stop doing what you’re doing to my fingers.”

“It’s my new interviewing technique,” Ben says.

“Well, guess what? It’s working.”

For the first time in the five months we’ve been together, Ben comes home with me. And, of course, it’s the one time Jeffrey decides to return early from a trip.

We are under a nice warm comforter in my bedroom—the one only I sleep in now, though Jeffrey still shares the closets. A fire is crackling, and the French doors to the bedroom deck are open a few inches so we can hear the waves beating on the shore. There is soft music playing.

Even so, I hear my husband’s footsteps on the stairs. No way to miss them, after all these years.

Ben and I are both naked, and our clothes are strewn all over the floor, so there’s no time to grab something, throw it on and pretend we’re having a council meeting. Though I hear there are Carmel council members who have done just that, over the years.

As Jeffrey walks in, I sit up, pulling the sheets to my neck and playing for time. “You’re home early,” I complain loudly, hoping to put the blame on him for catching us.

He takes in the scene with one glance.

“Well, if I’d known you were entertaining, I’d have called ahead,” he says mildly. Despite his attempt at indifference, I could swear his graying George Clooney hair is bristling—like a lion’s when he finds a strange male in his lair.

Ben, for his part, struggles to maintain his dignity—a losing battle, given that he’s lying naked next to another man’s wife. I can hear the wheels rolling: Do I get out of bed and run into the bathroom while they duke it out, or do I grab my clothes and make a fast departure out the door?

Ben hates confrontation of the personal kind. Give him a gun and a perp, and he’s a whole other guy.

“Stay where you are, Ben,” I say firmly. “It’s not as if this is something new for Jeffrey, after all.”

I feel him sliding down under the sheets inch by inch.

“Hello, Ben,” Jeffrey says. “How’s the bid for promotion going? I hear you’re up for chief.”

The threat to expose us is obvious. Whether Jeffrey will carry it out while I’ve got him and the bimbo as collateral is doubtful. Still, he must swagger a bit.

“It’s going fine,” Ben says in a conversational voice that makes me proud. He has apparently decided to pretend he’s standing in our living room, dressed in a tux. “How are things with you, Jeffrey?”

“Fine, fine.” Jeffrey heads for his walk-in closet. “Well, you two go on with what you were doing. I just came back for clean shirts.”

Ben and I look at each other. Jeffrey gets his shirts. He stops at the bureau for cuff links and takes his time finding them. Ben and I are motionless in the bed, sheets to our necks, barely breathing.

“I’ll be off now,” Jeffrey says a hundred years later, making his way to the door. He stops only momentarily on the landing as Murphy growls again. We hear his footsteps going down the stairs, then his car leaving.

Ben groans and throws the comforter over his face. His voice comes muffled from under the pillowy down. “If he tells anyone, I’m a goner.”

I crawl under the covers and reach for him. “Well, then, young fella, I say we make hay while the sun shines. Let’s see, what have we here…”

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