Not for the first time, Olivia questioned her own intelligence. How exactly did she get herself into these situations? It was cold. It was dark. She knew better.

That was the kicker, she knew better.

As she looked apprehensively around the gazebo her middle finger drummed an insistent beat against her leg. One, one-two, one, one-two. She drove herself crazy with that little tic. The trouble was it was so ingrained it usually took her a minute to even realise it had started. What was she even doing here? It was a bad idea. It was the latest in the overly lengthy series of bad ideas she’d been having lately. One of these days she was going to have to stop being such an idiot.

One, one-two, one, one-two. It was worse when she was nervous.

In an attempt to stop her hands she folded them tightly across her chest, drawing her sequinned jacket tighter around her body. It was really much too cold to be hanging around outside; she could faintly see her breath in the night air. She had to be the only one dumb enough to be out here away from the patio heaters, but then she supposed that seclusion was the motive behind the choice of venue. In the summer the gazebo was probably lovely, all bright and white amongst the blooming shrubs and blossom. It was a quiet corner of the garden far away from the noise of the clubhouse, a little world of your own where nobody could see you existed. She could barely even hear the party from it.

It wasn’t summer though was it? It was January and her party clothes really weren’t warm enough for this.

She was starting to freeze her ass off and yet again she asked herself why she was even present. What did she think was going to happen? What was it going to change? How was it going to be any different from all of the previous occasions (which she’d already acknowledged to herself as demonstrations of incredibly poor judgment)? This was assuming the other attendee of this little tête-à-tête even turned up. It was by no means a given.

Her finger was trying to tap again so she clutched a handful of her jacket instead. It was probably going to yank some of the black sequins out, but then she’d been shedding those pretty much all night anyway.  The cleaning staff at the club would probably find them in the carpet for weeks afterwards.

“Liv!”

It was all she could do to stop herself from leaping five feet to her immediate left. She had been staring at what she thought was the only approach to that spot, the one she herself had used. How had he managed to sneak up behind her? Was there some path back there she didn’t know about?

She whirled around to face him. Before she could speak he had grabbed her face in his hands and was crushing his mouth to hers.

“Mmph!” She tried to push him away but he was half a foot taller than her and he worked out. The upper hand was his. “Do you really…”

“Yes I really, I haven’t seen you for six damn weeks and I’ve been going out of my mind. Just come ‘ere.”

Treasonous limbs complied with the request, not heeding any of her logically impeccable and entirely valid mental protestations. Her fingers no longer wanted to tap because they were too busy sliding across his back. His in return grasped greedily at her waist, slipping towards her hips as their lips hungrily collided.

This display was exactly why agreeing to meet had been a poorly conceived plan. When he said things like that her intellect and her rationality and her sense of self-preservation all mutually decided to pack up and leave the building. That was why she had decided that it wasn’t a clever idea to be around him in the first place. So why did she keep ignoring her own advice? He was like her sexiest pair of stilettos – it all looked like a really fabulous idea until about an hour into the night when her feet felt crippled.

Yet somehow experience never seemed to teach her any better. Next time she was due to go out, there she was picking them out of the closet again.

“Justin…” She exhaled, her breathing a touch too heavy.

“No.” His mouth pressed against hers more insistently, his tongue trying to dart past her lips to meet hers. “Shut up. No talking right now.”

“This…”

It was hard to get words out. She kept trying to duck her head away from him but he persisted in trying to find her mouth again. As it was he kept hitting her jaw or her neck instead and that wasn’t much more helpful than the lips.

“This doesn’t change anything, I meant what I said.”

“It doesn’t seem like you meant what you said.”

He was only teasing but in fairness to the man, he had a point. Nothing she had done had actually backed up any of her words. It had all been fine for the first two or three weeks, but then she had started replying to texts. Then he’d invited her to the party. She had refused multiple times… but look where she was now. It had been a spectacularly silly decision to come, and an even worse one to agree to meet him by the gazebo ‘so we can talk.’ Now she was standing there saying she’d meant it while kissing him and allowing his hands to go pretty much wherever. Not a single part of her behaviour displayed much resolve to stick to the diktat - it was no good to lay down the law if you weren’t going to enforce it.

“Well I fucking well did. I am not that slut okay?”

Maybe she should have sworn earlier, because finally Justin raised his head from her neck and looked her in the eye.

“Of course you’re not a slut. Why would you even think that? That’s not what this is.”

“So you keep saying,” Olivia replied unhappily, staring at the open button of his collar like it could provide any succour. “Yet here we still are, sneaking off into a dark corner where your wife won’t see us.”

“Shit, this is really not what I asked you here for… I’m sorry Liv.” He pushed his forehead to hers, one hand skating upwards to tangle itself in her blonde curls. Idly he noticed that she’d put blue streaks through the tips and wondered when she’d done that. “I didn’t mean to get carried away; I’ve just been desperate to see you. I really have been going fuckin’ insane.”

She closed her eyes and the unhappy expression that seemed to be following her lately settled back on her face. It was probably giving her wrinkles.

“We can’t go on like this, Justin. It’s your birthday and Vanessa is in that swanky club over there throwing you this damn party while I’m out here making out with her husband. I told you that you either need to leave her or we need to end this and I mean it. I cannot keep being this other woman because a slut is exactly what it makes me feel like.”

Justin shook his head vehemently, hand brushing over her cheek.  Apart from anything else, the birthday party was being thrown more for his wife’s benefit than his. “You need to stop thinking like that. It’s not exactly ideal…”

Olivia scoffed loudly and looked pointedly at him, but he met it with a stern gaze of his own.

“But this isn’t some sleazy get some thing and you damn well know it, so stop talking like that.”

“So you keep saying, but I don’t see anything changing,” she said bluntly. “You are showing precisely zero sign of leaving the crazy wife that you can’t stand any more. I’ve seen other people do this dance before and what that usually means is that if the guy hasn’t left by a certain point then he isn’t really going to leave. Which is why I say enough, I am not sleeping with you or meeting you in any more dark corners until you’ve packed your bags and left.”

“It is going to happen, Liv.” Justin vowed. “You know that. Hell, even if you never spoke to me again I would still leave at this point, but you know full well how certifiable she is. I’m having to pussyfoot around first making sure her name is taken off my shit.”

“Why should I believe you, Justin?”

Finally she broke away from him, turning her back so that he couldn’t see her trembling chin. One, one-two, one, one-two.

“You have promised me so many times but you’ve done jack shit to actually suggest you’re going to follow through. Every time you reassure me that you’re going to, and then we wind up back here having the same conversation like it’s fucking Groundhog Day.”

She took a deep breath, but when Justin looked like he was about to interject she had to rush on with her little speech. She needed to get it all out.

“I have compromised enough of my principles here already, and pretty much the only way I’ve managed to sleep at night is thinking that this is real and not some affair. I can’t do that any more, this has been going on for way too long and I need to finally start being smart about this.”

The language she was using really worried him. Of course he knew that no matter how unhappy his marriage was this was still cheating and that technically made Olivia the other woman. Still she had never talked about their relationship in those terms. The talk had always been of a future together. She had always been uncomfortable with the situation but she never degraded herself the way she currently was and for what felt like the millionth time he wondered what had suddenly set all this off. It had certainly seemed sudden when she announced six weeks ago that she wouldn’t see him again until he had left Vanessa but maybe it had been stewing for a while?

He was silent for a moment, staring at her back, wondering what to say. Then he noticed what her fingers were doing and felt very guilty. He knew she only did that when she was stressed and he knew how much it bothered her.

“Sweetheart you’re twitching…” He moved to stand behind her and picked her fingers up in his, clasping them tightly and wrapping his arms around her waist again.

“Well this shit makes me twitchy. I shouldn’t even have come here tonight, the fact that I did shows what an enormous sucker I am.”

“Nah.” Justin pressed a kiss on the crown of her head. “Shows what a lucky bastard I am when I have no right to be.”

Again this was exactly why coming had been such a bad idea. She lacked the will to resist him and she knew it, so why did she put herself through the punishment?

“Look, I…”

Damn, he could even feel her fingers trying to twitch as he held them. He’d worked out that she tapped her middle fingers against her leg when she was anxious. She’d yet to tell him why or exactly what it signified; all he knew was that in times of angst the compulsion reared its head.  Before she’d cut him off he’d only seen her do it on one off occasions, enough to notice the pattern but not nearly enough to be concerned about it. As soon as she realised or it was pointed out to her she stopped – he’d never known her be unable to control it. How had she got this bad in the last six weeks?

Guilt struck him again. He knew that she was a sensitive creature; all of this really couldn’t be helping. Maybe he could have spared her if he’d got off his ass sooner but he’d been complacent.

You could only affect the present and not the past, however, so the best thing he could do to help now was to follow through. At this stage he was leaving no matter what; he was done worrying about what might become of him if he walked out. Maybe he could make it last with Olivia away from all the frisson of secrecy, or maybe it would fizzle out in the cold light of day when he no longer needed her as a tonic for his ills. He didn’t know but it didn’t matter. Whatever else happened his marriage needed to be over.  

“I’m sorry, baby.” His lips met her cheek again, hoping to soothe her ruffled nerves. “I know it’s rough on you and I know it’s not fair that I keep asking you to bear with me. I should have got my ass in gear earlier but I promise you, this is happening. I’m on the phone to the lawyers constantly and they’re nearly there. It’s just a little while longer and then you and I can actually be together like we talked about. And I’m sorry if I haven’t been helping by wanting to keep seeing you in the meantime but the times I get to be with you are pretty much the only thing keeping me together right now.”

Justin had to clutch her fingers a little tighter to quell the twitching.

“Say something.” He prompted her when the silence dragged on too long.

Olivia heaved a big sigh before turning in his arms and nestling her face in his chest. It had been a well-justified ultimatum and she knew she was killing its effect by offering all the resistance of butter to a knife, but she really was a fool for him. Moral qualms aside she had risked her reputation and her career. Things were starting to gain to momentum work wise and she could ill afford to have it go sour now. She was making a niche as an every girl - being caught having an affair with him would ruin her image. It could turn her into the villain in the eyes of the movie going public. Every way you looked at it being with him was ill-advised.

Oh well, at least he sounded like he was finally doing something. She hadn’t even been sure that would be the case. When she’d made the demand it hadn’t been her most mature moment (she’d yelled at him to ‘shit or get off the pot’ which was not exactly the best metaphor to refer to herself with) but she had felt every word.

Olivia had never wanted to be somebody’s mistress. That ship had sailed, but she still could and did refuse to be one of those women who continually made excuses for why her lover hadn’t left his wife yet. Though Justin was one of the few with a genuine reason for taking some time that pass had to expire eventually. Nothing good could come out of being blinded to reality.  They had long ago agreed that he would leave and they would try to be a legitimate couple, but he had stalled and then stalled some more. After having the same conversation multiple times with lots of excuses and no sign of follow up action she had snapped.

The decree was made; either his marriage or their affair had to end. She would have nothing further to do with him unless and until he left Vanessa. This had been a pretty risky strategy that she’d done a lot of panicking about. People who made ultimatums were often the ones left alone as a result and she really hadn’t been sure he would pick her. Still, what incentive did he have to actually make a move if she continually let it slide? The fear was that he still wasn’t ready to help himself and leave but for her own sake she’d had to take the gamble, put her foot down.

The increasingly frequent tapping of her fingers had told her she couldn’t keep up the status quo any longer.

“I just hate sneaking around.”

“Me too, Liv. But we won’t have to any more, which was why I wanted to see you tonight.” He leaned down to brush her lips with his. Though she didn’t reciprocate she didn’t resist either. “I wanted to tell you the news. There are only a couple more accounts I have to sign the forms for, and the lawyers said they should have them on Thursday with the divorce filings.”

Involuntarily her grip tightened. Thursday? Having a timeframe suddenly made her dare to hope. Thursday was less than a week away. It was a solid timescale, a fixed point on the calendar and not the same airy promise of ‘soon.’ He had mentioned actual legal proceedings.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Justin grinned at her and it was devastating. That was the handsome smile she’d been suckered in by, once she’d managed to coax one out of him. He really hadn’t smiled much when they first met.

“Appointment’s all set. I sign them Thursday morning, they file them Thursday afternoon, which means Thursday night I walk out the door. When you want to come have celebratory freedom sex on Friday you can find me at the Fairmont.”

Olivia ought to have been chastising him for that comment (which was entirely too cocky under the circumstances) but she was too happy and too busy throwing her arms around his neck. This time she kissed him properly and it wasn’t long before they were making out like teenagers. To hell with the self-imposed rules, he was actually serving the papers. It made her positively giddy. That one bit of news meant everything was okay – she wasn’t some cold comfort to pass the time. She no longer had to worry for his own sake that he might not find the strength to get out. He was leaving, it was over, and they had an actual shot at something.

Momentarily she was lifted off the floor in his embrace, and then he sat her down on the wooden railing. Both of them were becoming short of breath and hands were starting to wander dangerously. It was pretty rash of them to be doing this when anybody could come across them; previously they’d been painstakingly cautious. Justin hadn’t even used the big news to entice her back to him, knowing that if it went in a text or an e-mail it could conceivably be found. This hadn’t stopped him previously but this particular secret was too big and in his paranoia he had waited until he could tell her in person.

Yet now all caution was going to the wind due to the sheer relief of the end being in sight. Clutching onto each other, all the tension of the previous six weeks was starting to come to a boil. Her legs wrapped around his waist and his hands started to creep under the hem of her dress. It was all getting a bit out of hand, so when it was ruined by the insistent beeping of his phone it was probably for the best.

Justin withdrew with a frustrated grunt and dug in his pocket for his phone.

“It’s Joey,” he said. “They’re wondering where I am, apparently they want a group photo.”

“You just got cock blocked by your own defunct boy band.” She tousled the tips of his artificially straightened hair with her fingers. “Harsh.”

Justin chuckled evilly, giving her a smooch that was chaste this time. He always knew he’d got through to her and that she was feeling brighter when she said things like that. If they’d been at a poker game, regaining a sense of humour would have been her tell.

“You’ll be paying for that comment on Friday, woman. You go in first and I’ll follow in a couple minutes?”

“Okay.” She gave him one last peck and hopped down from the ledge. “I’m not going to stick around much longer though; think I’ll do the bare minimum to be polite then head out. Call me in the morning?”

“I will.”

He clung onto her hand as she started walking away, only letting go when she moved beyond arm’s length and even then reluctantly. He couldn’t stand seeing her leave when being around her was the only time he was anything approaching happy any more.

It was only a few more days. He had to remember that it was only a few more days.