"How are you feeling?"
"Better".
"I'm sorry for yelling at you".
"I apologise as well... it wasn't professional".
Like a pair of scolded kids, Laurent and Carter sat at Amber's table while the lady in question prepared some tea. She wasn't in her best condition to act politely, but the circumstances required someone with rationality to act as a mediator.
"Can we both stand back and acknowledge that... none of us was at fault?" Laurent fidgeted and requested, holding her head and rubbing it for all it was worth, 'I just want this to be over... to get back to how we were before this nightmare started'.
"Why must I? Amber was new in the department, I was teaching her what she needed to know... you and I had been in a relationship for three years. I remained loyal for all that time without even giving you the slightest hint that I was cheating... why would I suddenly do it with a girl that's just new in the department? are you out of your mind?"
"... because I didn't know if I was anything more than a tool-"
"Don't come to me with that bullshit, Laurent..."
"Then can you admit to me right now, looking at me in the eyes... that you feel nothing for Amber?"
Regret was everything that remained for the blonde as she refused to shed any more tears over this topic if it came to it... she was willing to just accept all the blame once she confirmed that indeed, it had been just her misconception. Carter would never be able to lie to her when looking into her eyes, she knew by experience.
"No, I can't admit that".
"I see, then I guess I- w-what?! Carter!"
With a brusque and swift motion, she took him by the collar yet again, this time... the tears shed, 'So I was right all along!?'
Carter frowned and took both of her hands tightly, removing them from his collar but without shoving her away.
"I never said I didn't feel anything for her... I only said that I wouldn't betray you, which I didn't!".
All she could do was curse how honest and uncaring he was for some topics, "You're supposed to lie to me and say you don't feel anything for her, you nut job!"
"Boss, d-do you really?" In came Amber with two cups of tea and a heavy blush, she had been eavesdropping; look and behold, it turns out all along her feelings were reciprocated. Her heart bumped furiously inside her chest.
Carter thought that the night had already gone long enough, he didn't want to talk about this topic anymore, 'I have to play tomorrow too... head into that forest of lamentations again'.
"Can I have this tea before I'm on my way? I don't want to talk about this".
But he was not going to be allowed to go just like that. Now that Amber knew what her position was, with the target already inside her apartment... how could she give up?
"No, the three of us... we have to solve this right now. Amber, you have to stop chasing after Carter" Laurent pulled the sighing man back down to sit on the table while Amber left the tea on the table and -quite ominously- double-locked the main door.
She knew the three of them were still a little tipsy and what kept sobriety was the importance of the topic in question, a legendary love triangle.
When she finally got comfortable and sat back down, only then she addressed Laurent's request.
"Give up? no way..."
"You!"
"He's single now, my family is a family of winners! Why must I stop chasing after him?! Would you like that, boss? do you want me to give up on you?" Amber's puppy eyes were a weapon of massive destruction that no man or ex-girlfriend could ever fathom.
"..." All the man could do was gulp, how could he say that he didn't want such a gorgeous beauty to chase after him? More so, 'I actually feel honoured that she's willing to go to such lengths to be with me, to be honest'.
She played her cards too well, Carter's silence could only mean one thing.
"Carter!" Laurent was at the bridge of breaking point. It felt like the three years of paradise she had lived with her boyfriend were being unashamedly shattered by the intrusion of this girl who was a fair deal younger than them with them being thirty-two and thirty-one, while Amber was twenty-four.
"This is so stressful, I'm off" First pulled down by Laurent, now... he was being pulled down by Amber. With his guard low, Carter could still not tell the sort of deadly trap he was being led into.
"You're not going anywhere, boss. See... I have an idea. How about the three of us become honest for once? I have been in the department for one year, and our lives had gone downhill since I joined it" Amber admitted.
"It is good that you know" Laurent hissed.
"It doesn't have anything to do with me, though. You know Laurent, even though I had feelings for the boss... I respected you. I never tried anything too intimate or crossed any boundary because I knew it was wrong. I guess I was hoping that he'd leave you himself and come to me... or he'd completely abandon me and go to you. I didn't want to be in the way, but I also didn't want to give up".
"..." Laurent's eyebrows flinched, still irritated by the fact that certainly, she hadn't ever found the two of them doing anything naughty.
"Your insecurities ended this relationship" Amber shot a bullet that knew no mercy.
It hit Laurent so hard, that her hand which had been holding Carter's sleeve the whole time, started to shiver.
"You two can't just sit here... and make me look like I'm the one that's in the wrong".
"..." For Carter, it was a sad outcome.
'I love you, but your mistake ended everything I have worked my whole life for... I don't even care if you flirted with the guy trying to make me jealous or not. But your action threw me into the lowest pit...'
A minute of dead silence unfolded in which none of them had touched their tea. Amber sighed, realising that perhaps what they needed wasn't tea. She walked to the kitchen and brought something.
A bottle of whiskey and three cups.
They had already been tipsy, but the moment Laurent saw the bottle, it was as if she saw salvation and didn't care about decorum. She took the bottle directly and gurged it out!
"Hey! You have drunk enough!" Carter tried to stop her with worry, she was never good with alcohol and had already over-drunk in the bar, this was just going to make it worse.
*SOB*
She didn't say a word, merely sobbing and planting her head on the table, "I have given everything I have for this relationship to work... w-why won't you just give up?"
Her gaze towards Amber was literally begging, aware she possessed no more cards, not when his resentment wasn't aiming at her action, but the consequences which she couldn't override.
Amber took the same bottle and gurged it out as well, with no politeness. She smashed the bottle down and glanced at Laurent with the most aggrieved of expressions.
"I waited and waited for the moment when the two of you would break up. W-Why do I have to give up when the perfect man is in front of me!?" With blushing cheeks, her delicate face brushed against Carter's as she requested him while pointing an accusatory finger at Laurent, "Tell her to give up!"
"No, you have to give up, homewrecker!"
"Ugh, f*ck me!"
Carter took the bottle and gurged it out as well. In the end, it didn't matter... once the night ended, the three of them would surely forget everything that happened and go back to their lives.
**
**
Saturday morning after a night of heavy drinks. Something wasn't right. A foreign ceiling, a common foregone warmth.
When Carter looked to his right, he felt the urge to sigh. The barely shiny rays of light protruded from the closed crimson curtains of the brazen rosy pink room.
There, he saw a naked Laurent, as gorgeous and perfect as ever, hugging his arm tightly against her chest. This was a common sight he was used to. All he could do was twitch his tongue, 'I gave away in the end…'
A defeat so to say; after adamantly refusing to return he still fell for the most carnal of traps when the influence of alcohol had crossed the border of sanity.
It was bad, but it wasn't catastrophic, 'If it comes to it… I'll just make up with Laurent. I was planning to do so anyway but she had to suffer a little bit more, I think that's eno-'
It was then that he realised that the warmth wasn't coming just from his right side. All the alarms rang simultaneously. Not the phone ones, for it, was Saturday… the mental alarms.
Looking to his left, he found a naked Amber. A body so young and yet so developed with brunette hair that reached as far as his eyes could see. Much the same way Laurent was… but bolder; If the blonde dared to clutch his arm with his chest, the brunette dared sandwich his hand with her rather… moist… tights.
'No way…'
There was still hope. When his gaze drifted down to his own body naked and sweaty still… that hope shattered, he was naked as well.
'I need to get out of here!'
The worse possible situation. He didn't know what to expect from Amber. Perhaps she'd be happy to leave what looked like a one-night stand, between them… forever forgotten as a one-time event that happens every so often on the schedule of a gorgeous female.
But the British lady? 'Blackmail, drama. I need to run!'
Like a contortionist and perhaps due to the assistance of a hangover, Carter managed to squeeze himself out of their clutches. Step one was done, step two was to leave the bed, step three flee the house, and step four depart the area and never return to this side of New York again.
But... with yet another discovery he realised that this wasn't going to be like the famous Hollywood's Mission Impossible. This mission was TRULLY going to be impossible.
...
Deep within the crotches of both ladies, he could see it.
A rather thick and yellow-ish goo squeezed through the gaps and reached the bed, coming out of Laurent's swollen privates. This much, although a catastrophe, was manageable... he knew Laurent was on the pill or at least had been when they broke up. What made his heart drop, however... was Amber's side.
A bloody patch on the bed and a ridiculously massive volume of that same thick and yellowish substance mixed with blood dropped onto the bed after following a lewd trail. It could even be said... the volume was greater than with Laurent.
As chaos seeped into his heart, there was only one question in Carter's mind.
'W-Was I that backed up- wait no! What happened yesterday?!'