Chapter 22 - New Lives

ROY FAITH

I know I shouldn’t have come here. My stomach drops again and churns more with each mile I drive, as I get closer to Lanie’s house.

OK, so I shouldn’t have come, but I’m not going to call on her. I’m sticking to what she said. I’m letting her get on with her life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t drive by where she lives.

I shouldn’t think about this either, but since that old man who lives next door to her made his offer to me, about keeping an eye on her, even checking her phone, I’ve imagined taking him up on it. Giving him my phone number so he can call me, giving him the security code for her phone too - and hoping she hasn’t changed it lately. Then let him see what he can find out. About what she’s doing, and about who she’s with.

But I’m not a low life. I could never invade Lanie’s privacy that way. Even though I ache to know. Even though I ache for her. And I still don’t know who this other guy was. Or if, despite what she told me, it’s still going on - him and her.

Why else would she want to move on from me?

I reach the road that leads to hers and my heart rate increases. I don’t want her to see me and think I’m stalking her. I’m not spying on her. If she happens to see me drive by and then contacts me about it, I’ll laugh and say she’s ‘Not the only person I know in the area’. Or something like that. I’ll keep it mysterious. Like there could be another female involved. Let her think I’m moving on with my life too. Until I get the chance face-to-face to tell her otherwise. Maybe make her think some more about what she’s doing to me and her. Maybe even make her jealous.

I slow and then stop for the left-hand turn into her estate but have to wait with the indicator clicking while a motor coming the other way makes a right turn into there first. A cab.

Wait. That was her! Sat in the front talking to the driver. My heart rattles in my ribcage. She didn’t see me. I’m sure of it.

I watch their car make another right turn into Lanie’s street and disappear.

What do I do now?

If I get my timing right I can drive past while she’s walking up her drive. Sound my horn. Maybe just wave at her like it’s no biggie but keep driving by.

No. She’d be sure to think I’d followed her.

A car horn blasts and the guy in the car behind me gesticulates at me to make a move.

I wave back at him and turn left.

Lanie in a cab though.

Was it McKenzie’s dad again? Is he the guy she slept with?

She said not, but who’s to say that wasn’t a lie?

I approach her house on my left and the cab is at the end of her drive. I don’t slow up but I do glance at the taxi as I pass. Lanie’s not inside. He is though.

How come he’s waiting?

I slow up further down the street but can’t work out what to do next. I have to know if that’s the guy. Why else would he be waiting? When do cab drivers ever take a fare home and then wait around to ferry them somewhere else?

Further up Lanie’s street and beyond a white van parked up, there’s a left turn into a cul-de-sac. I pull in there and then swing the car around to head back out onto her street. I keep this side of the white van though, so I’m not in the direct line of sight of the cab. But I can see part of it. It’s still outside Lanie’s.

Now what?

A thump on my window scares the shit out of me.

The old man from next door to Lanie’s gestures with a rolled-up newspaper for me to roll my window down.

“Hey,” I say but have no explanation for what I’m doing lurking here.

“They put me in the same club as you,” he says and leans right into the car.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m dumped,” his mouth pulls tight, “After everything I did for your ex-girlfriend’s mother.”

‘Ex’? The thought of Lanie as my ‘ex’ makes me physically nauseous.

“Oh,” I say and look away from his rheumy eyes and back down the road toward the cab.

“I blame that daughter of hers too,” he snorts.

“Lanie?”

“Ungrateful little bitch,” he says.

“Hey, do you mind not talking about Lanie that way?”

“Whatever,” he says sourly, “The pair of them will be out on the street on their asses with the younger one too soon enough. That’ll teach them about gratitude.”

I’m only ‘grateful’ I never gave him her phone details like he asked for.

And then Lanie herself comes out of the house in her jeans and a jacket. She’s carrying her holdall. That same one she took with her when she and I went away to the mountains.

I feel sick.

Where’s she going? Who with?

“I’ve got to go,” I say to the old man and roll the window back up.

The cab moves off, but it doesn’t come this way, so he must be turning around and going back out of the estate the same way he came in.

I’m following. If I don’t get too close they won’t spot me.

I pull away from the curb with her neighbor staring after me in my rearview, his newspaper tucked under one arm. The cab is headed up the road in front.

They mustn’t see me. This might be my only opportunity to find out who Lanie’s new guy is.

Lanie with a ‘new guy’. If I wasn’t trying to keep the cab in view then I’d pull up and spew my guts all over the sidewalk. In my darkest moments since our last split I’ve considered the possibility of Lanie having someone new, but this, this is too real.

Why else pack your overnight bag unless you’re going to ‘him’?

Stay calm, I’ve got to stay calm. Try to concentrate on not getting too close without losing sight of them.

I echo their every stop and start at each junction or set of lights, praying that he doesn’t spot the same car behind or almost behind for mile after mile. Praying too that even if he does, he doesn’t mention it to Lanie and she then looks around and recognizes the car and me.

How would I explain it?

But would I need to? I could be innocently traveling this route, couldn’t I? And it’s starting to get dark now anyway so they’re less likely to notice me.

Just as well. I doubt I could really sell the coincidence of my presence on this road to anyone but a fool.

And Lanie’s no fool.

I slow up well ahead of the next set of traffic lights so that I don’t end up too close behind them. But even from here, I can see that she and him are in conversation. But maybe that’s no big deal. If he’s Kenzie’s Dad, and nothing is going on between the pair of them, then so what? They know each other, don’t they?

I still can’t help my suspicion though. Or this sick excitement.

Would a girl like Lanie ever go for a cab driver? And someone his age? Her best friend’s Dad? She could have anyone she wanted.

But then again, how much interest has she ever shown in what you’d call classically handsome guys? ‘Popular’ guys? She always says she never trusts guys like them. And there were plenty of the popular guys who were always after my girl at college.

Is she still ‘my girl’? Please, God.

We head through a roundabout in our secret convoy and I think back to the time when she and I started getting close in college. Our Business classes. Would she ever have even looked my way if we hadn’t been forced to sit together that first time? All because of other students disrupting the class. Or if there’d been any other guy taking the class as seriously as she and I did?

Is that really all we ever had in common?

I won’t believe that.

After another right turn, the cab slows and then pulls up under the amber glow of a street lamp and outside a small apartment block with a grass verge outside. It’s almost dark now.

I have no choice but to drive past them and keep going. At least for a few hundred yards. But as soon as I can, I make another right and swing the car around again. I pull back and up to the junction from the road they stopped on, and I peer left.

Lanie’s out of the car and then at the trunk with the driver.

He looks old enough to be McKenzie’s Dad I guess. Under the amber light, the pair of them cross the grass verge toward the apartment block. But she’s carrying her holdall herself.

How come he’s going with her?

My head spins with confusion but my stomach drops again. I scarcely dare admit what I’m thinking.

For a moment, I consider driving back past them and parking on the street further down. But if she’s staying somewhere in there she might look out of a window and spot my car.

So I back up and leave the car adjacent to the sidewalk. I’ll walk around to the apartments. I need to know who she’s staying with. And why the hell he took her right in there.

I hold my breath and hurry on foot around the corner, then down the street toward the abandoned cab.

But even before I reach the building I get a glimpse of Lanie inside. Through a ground-floor window under the lights of what looks like a living room.

He’s in there too. What’s going on?

My heart batters my chest and my stomach is on the floor but I twist my head away from them and keep walking.

And then past the building to the next - a row of terrace houses. I stop and turn around. Between the houses and the apartments where Lanie is, there’s a narrow alleyway. A dark one. I have no idea where it ultimately leads, but I might be able to get closer to the other side of the building that she’s in, and without being seen. So the alley draws me down it, and I hurry. As quietly as I can, all along the side of the building and before long, with the torch of my phone to guide me.

At the back of the two-story block are a handful of parking spaces under a single dim overhead light. This area must be accessed from one of the other side streets, I guess.

An awful thought begins to take firmer shape in my head. If this is where the cab driver lives, then it could make sense for his car to be parked out front. In case he gets called out to a fare.

Is it Mckenzie’s dad? Is this where he lives?

Lanie, no.

But at the back of the building, with no one else in sight out here - or up above, in an illuminated upper floor window on any side - I peer at what I calculate should be the back, ground floor windows of the apartment that Lanie is in. They’re about twenty feet away from me.

One’s is small and dark, with frosted glass so maybe a bathroom. Another is larger, but dark too. I could creep back around to the front, but I might get seen from the road prowling.

And then a light comes on in a third window ahead of me.

A bedroom?

The curtains are open but I can’t see from here who’s in the room. I take another look all around me at the night, and then lower my shoulders to hopefully stay out of sight of the ground floor room. I sneak closer to the illuminated glass with my head and shoulders low.

What am I doing? What am I doing? What if someone sees me?

And then I’m right up to the building, crouched below the lit window.

I hold my breath to listen for voices from inside. I can’t hear anything. I still feel sick. Surely with the lights on in there, if there’s anyone still inside, they wouldn’t be able to see me out here in the dark?

Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I push a hand down into my pants and feel my thickening cock.

How can this excite me? My heart is breaking.

I get ready to raise my head and eyes to peer inside.

What am I doing? How did Lanie and I come to this?

Slowly, I rise from a crouch and see them straight away. I duck down fast.

Her and him. Only standing, talking. But it is a bedroom. And he looked so much older than her.

And then there is a noise too, above my head. The curtains are pulled across.

My cock is out and I work it fast through my fist. I masturbate because Lanie is in there in a bedroom with another man. Oh, Lanie. I stand right up and peer at the blank curtained veil she’s drawn between us. Between her new life and old. I press my ear to the cold glass but can hear nothing. So I keep masturbating. I imagine her in his arms, in his bed. Is this the new life she’s moved on to? Oh, Lanie. He’s doing unspeakable things to my girl. His experienced hands all over her perfect body. Soiling and spoiling her forever.

Oh Lanie, oh God, no Lanie.

Author's Notes

Will Roy give up on Lanie now? Or does he still have some chance (and a plan) to win her back?

If so though, how?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Next week we're with Kev and his newly pierced and inked wife Evie as they report to Richmond's penthouse. Evie's keen to show Richmond what she's finally done to her body for him.

But there's more instore for the couple than they expect....

© 2025 Tinto Selvaggio. All rights reserved.

 All characters portrayed in this ebook are consenting adults eighteen years of age or older. As a work of fiction, any similarities to any situations or persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.