Chapter 99: Mission Failed Successfully (18+)
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The realization hit me as I moved down the hallway.
"Oh," I said, out loud, to no one.
I halted. For one blissful second, common sense suggested that turning around and leaving right then and there was the only reasonable option.
I pushed the bedroom door open.
The sight hit me like a punch to the the fucking gut.
Melanie was on her back in the middle of the bed, completely naked, legs spread wide.
A guy I didn’t recognize, tall, muscular, with messy dark hair... was on top of her, thrusting into her hard and deep. The wet, rhythmic sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, mixed with Melanie’s breathy moans and his low grunts.
Her breasts bounced with every thrust, nipples hard. One of her hands was gripping the guy’s back, nails digging into his skin, while the other fisted the sheets.
Her head was tilted back, lips parted, eyes half-closed in pleasure. The guy had one hand gripping her thigh, holding her leg open as he drove into her again and again, the slick sound of her wetness audible with every movement.
They were so lost in it that it took them a second to notice me standing there.
The guy froze mid-thrust, buried deep inside her. Melanie’s eyes flew open, locking onto mine.
For a split second, pure shock flashed across her face.
"Oliver—!" she gasped, voice breaking.
The guy pulled out of her with a wet sound, his hard cock glistening as he scrambled back. Melanie frantically grabbed at the sheets, trying to cover her naked body, her face flushing deep red with embarrassment and panic.
"Oh my God, Oliver — wait, this isn’t...fuck! I mean, after last night I was just... I was hurt and upset and—"
She was rambling, still breathing hard, chest rising and falling rapidly. Her hair was a mess, lips swollen from kissing, thighs still slightly parted before she quickly pressed them together under the sheet.
The guy beside her looked smug for a brief moment before awkwardness set in.
I stood there frozen, unable to look away immediately. The image burned into my brain, Melanie naked, flushed, clearly in the middle of getting fucked.
The scent of sex hung heavy in the air. My stomach twisted with guilt, discomfort, and a strange, hollow feeling.
I wasn’t jealous.
That was the most terrifying part.
I felt... nothing romantic. Just guilt for pushing her to this point, and an overwhelming sense of clarity.
She stared at me. I stared back. The guy, still in the doorway, looked between us like he was trying to find the exit.
This was officially the most uncomfortable moment of my recent life, and I had been through a lot in recent weeks.
"Nope," I said, already pointing toward the hallway behind me. "Nope. I’m out."
"Wait—" Melanie almost tripped over a shoe trying to stop me. "Oliver, wait!"
I halted, mostly because my brain had temporarily hit pause and walking required more coordination than I had.
Melanie looked like she genuinely wanted to disappear into the ground. I understood the feeling. I would have happily joined her in hiding.
"This isn’t—" she started, then paused. She glanced back at the guy still standing in the doorway. Then she looked back at me, groaning as she dropped her head into her hands. "Actually, it is exactly what it looks like."
The guy nodded helpfully. "Thanks for the honesty."
"Not helping, Trevor."
"I’m just being supportive."
"You are literally making this worse, Trevor."
I blinked. Trevor. Right. That had been his name all along.
The guy turned to Melanie, "shit, is he your boyfriend?"
"Yeah..." Melanie mumbled.
I halted, mostly because my brain had temporarily hit pause and walking required more coordination than I had.
"Not anymore," I said.
Melanie looked like she genuinely wanted to disappear into the ground. I understood the feeling. I would have happily joined her in hiding.
The truly odd part of this whole moment wasn’t what was happening...it was how I felt...or, more accurately, what I didn’t feel.
No jealousy, no heartbreak. No surge of protectiveness over something that, three weeks ago, I would have assumed would completely devastate me.
Even my notorious temper was no where to be seen.
Just shock, maybe embarrassment, not just for myself but for everyone in the room. And a strange, almost comedic sense of this is happening to me right now.
Melanie rubbed her face in frustration. "I really am so sorry. Oliver."
She locked eyes with me, a complicated mix of guilt and frustration crossing her face as her arms crossed over her chest. "After what happened the other night, I was so upset. I just knew you didn’t want me anymore."
Her words hit harder than I anticipated. Not because they were cruel, she hadn’t said them that way at all...but because they were true, unvarnished and real.
Guilt twisted painfully in my chest, because none of this was really about Trevor, or tonight, or even the kiss that had gone awry a few nights ago. It was about months of uncertainty piling up.
Months where I’d tried to force feelings that simply didn’t exist. Months of giving her just enough hope to keep believing that things might eventually shift.
I looked down at the carpet. "I’m sorry."
Melanie let out a weak, broken laugh. "So am I."
For a moment, we both were left speechless. Then Trevor, still hanging out in the doorway like he recognized he had overstayed his welcome, cleared his throat awkwardly.
"I’m going to, uh—disappear now."
Neither of us stopped him. As soon as he slipped into the living room, the tension in the hallway lessened, just a bit, like a breath finally let out.
Melanie crossed her arms again. "I didn’t...I didn’t think you’d actually come back."
"I needed to, I wanted to talk."
Her teary eyes searched mine, and it felt like she already knew exactly what I’d come to say. Maybe she had sensed it for a while, longer than I realized, maybe even longer than I had.
A sad smile touched her lips. "Yeah."
I swallowed. "I’m sorry."
This time, she simply nodded. "I know, I understand. I’m so sorry too."
The silence that followed felt surprisingly gentle. Painful, but gentle...the kind of quiet that comes when a wound is finally treated instead of being left to fester beneath a bandage that was never going to do the job.
Eventually, I rubbed at the back of my neck. "I should probably—"
"Leave before this gets even more awkward?"
"That was my plan, yeah." I smiled faintly and turned toward the door.
"Oliver?"
I glanced back. Her expression had softened into something melancholic.
"I really do hope your dad gets better."
Emotion caught me off guard, blocking my throat unexpectedly. "Thank you," I said, and I meant it completely.
Then I left, I supposed that was the end of it.
Like shit, I almost laughed... Melanie barely waited for the so-called relationship to end before she went and found someone else.
Kinda inspiring, don’t you think?
Guess she really didn’t like me as much as she said she did. Can’t blame her, though.
The cool night air hit my face as soon as I stepped outside, sharp and fresh after the warmth of the dorm hallway. For several seconds, I just stood there on the steps, breathing, letting the evening settle around me while I processed everything else.
But underneath that guilt was something else entirely. Something I hadn’t seen coming.
Relief.
Deep, undeniable, almost dizzying relief, because the truth was finally out in the open where it could stop quietly poisoning everything. No more pretending.
No more forcing feelings that had never been there to begin with. No more convincing myself that with enough effort, enough time, enough trying, things would eventually make sense on their own.
The relationship had never felt right. Not because Melanie wasn’t enough, she had been more than enough, more than I probably deserved given how distracted I’d been throughout it. It just hadn’t felt right because my heart had never actually belonged there in the first place.
As I began the walk back toward Preston Hall, one thought kept pace with me through the quiet, lamp-lit streets.
I would have to explain to Damien why I looked like I had just come through another emotional storm.
The genuinely funny part and believe me, there was humor in this, in its own absurd way, was that it wouldn’t even be a lie. I had gone to Callington Hall intending to gently end things with Melanie, carefully, with as much kindness as I could muster.
Instead, I had walked in on her with someone else entirely. And the worst part...the part I kept turning over during the whole walk home, dissecting it from every angle because it genuinely surprised me was that I hadn’t felt a hint of jealousy. Not even a smidgen of anger.
I’d only felt relief...I suppose this was what freedom felt like.