I would like thank Ahazura and Randi for organising this event and inviting me to participate in the second Legends' Day. Me? A legend? I blush! I would also like to thank Laurel for all her hard work.
Thank you Randi for your fine editing skills and also thank you for the anonymous help of a bashful contributor.
*
He had it all. He had all the information he required for a confrontation that he knew must come, and must come quickly.
He had some additional information that he would somehow try his best to shoehorn into the confrontation, if it could be described as a confrontation. Hell, who was he trying to convince? Of course there was going to be a confrontation! Even at this late date, he was still unsure what nature the confrontation would take, exactly, how it would all pan out.
The information that had been shared with him made him believe that the whole denouement would take place this evening.
For a split second, he felt like just walking away from it, taking off and... what? That really wouldn't solve anything. Besides, that would let people down, irritate and upset people who had been irritated and upset more than enough, without him screwing everything up even further.
The only realistic option would be for him to follow through with his plan and hope that everyone else was following through with their plans, playing their parts. Actually, he didn't seriously doubt that they would not do so.
He parked his car in the allotted space in the underground car park, which was next to his wife's BMW, before he took the lift to the fourth floor.
Mike Cooper walked out of the lift, turned right, walked a few more paces, slower than of late, and he arrived at the flat. He begged its pardon, the apartment; the monthly rent was far too grand for it to be described as a mere flat, which he shared with his wife of ten years, Nicola.
As he shut the front door behind him, he sensed an atmosphere of tension. Perhaps, he mused to himself, today would be the day. All that he had seen and heard indicated that it would be. He fervently hoped that it would be, as he was not sure how long he could keep up the pretence that things were normal, that he was as clueless as Nicki seemed to believe him to be.
He hung his jacket on the clothes pegs in the hall, and as he reached for the handle on the lounge door said, sotto voce "Let's Do This!" He smiled, but there was no humour in it.
"Hopefully, it'll be time for Nicki to face up to reality, bite the bullet, stand up and be counted and whatever other clichés I can muster up for this shitty situation," he mused to himself. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he allowed himself a brief grin.
When he opened the door, she was sitting on the sofa. Her face was a mélange of mixed emotions covering a wide range from fear to dread, from sympathy to apathy. "Or perhaps it was an attack of the wind?"
He stopped himself from laughing. If tonight was, as he suspected, the night it was all going to go down, then he really didn't want to cock things up by laughing at his own jokes, no matter how hilarious he might find them. His ability to hide behind jokes during awkward or tense situations had always irritated Nicki. "Tough shit!" he thought.
"Hello, honey," she spoke to him in a tone of voice that sounded... what? Expectant? Nervous?
"Please, sit down. We need to have a little... chat."
"Bloody, buggering hell!" he thought. "Looks like we are going for cliché bingo, tonight! Well, eyes down, look in, as they say in all the best bingo halls."
He realised, inconsequentially, that there would be no "looking in" tonight, as her not inconsiderable cleavage was hidden from show and she was very soberly dressed, almost as if she were attending the funeral of someone she didn't really know well enough, or care enough about, to wear formal mourning wear for.
It occurred to him. that was exactly what was happening, because this was the funeral of their wedding, something she had proven she really didn't know all that well, and which she certainly no longer cared enough about.
He sat down, facing her, with the coffee table between them. He placed his leather messenger bag underneath the table.
She had probably expected him to sit by her side; he based this on the hurt expression on her face. "Oh, well, that's a pity!" he thought. "We don't always get what we want in life."
"Okay, Nicki," he said. "What is there to have a little chat about?"
She swallowed nervously before she continued. "It's like this, Mike. I no longer love you."
Despite having a pretty good idea of what was about to go down, hearing it put into words by his putative loving wife shocked him to the centre of his very being. He let out a startled gasp of pain.
She had a look of horror on her face. "No! No! I'm sorry! That came out all wrong! I still love you, but not like that! Not in the way that a wife should love her husband."
She paused before continuing: "I love you as a good man and as a good friend, but not as a husband. Not anymore. Not any longer."
He spoke softly, perhaps a little fearfully: "Is there... anyone else? Another man in your life?"
She nodded: "Yes, there is. Please! You must believe me, I didn't mean for it to happen, I met him at the office about six months ago. He's the new owner of the company I work for.
"I was asked to show him round the office and the building and we both instantly fell in love over a coffee in that lovely little Italian coffee shop that is underneath our offices."
"The place we sometimes used to meet in for romantic interludes in your working day, when you had a few minutes to spare?" he said, sadly.
