The rest of the afternoon

The rest of the afternoon crawls forward under the weight of everything left unsaid. You force yourself through the revised projections with Cheryl’s notes open beside you, tightening the regional gaps Duncan will need to see by evening. Every time you glance across the floor Ruby is at her desk, posture unchanged, but the earlier conversation sits between you like a live wire. She does not approach again. Cheryl passes once more with a short professional update on the conversion figures and nothing else, the memory of Matt’s office carefully sealed behind the usual competitive focus. The fluorescent lights keep humming. Emails accumulate and get answered. By four o’clock the floor has begun its familiar thinning. You close the laptop, gather your things, and leave without ceremony.

The drive home is short and tight with anticipation. You pull into the driveway earlier than any ordinary Thursday. No unfamiliar car. The house looks quiet from the outside. You unlock the door and step inside.

Natasha is already in the kitchen. The moment she hears the door her head snaps around. The livid expression is immediate and unfiltered.

“What the hell are you doing home?” she demands, voice rising fast. “It is Thursday. You never come home this early. Ruby messaged me the second you told her. You did that on purpose.”

You set your keys down and meet her anger head-on.

“Yes. I did. After this morning I was not about to sit at my desk knowing she was on her way here again. Four months of Tuesdays and Thursdays ends today.”

Natasha’s face darkens further. She steps closer, short curvy body rigid with fury, brunette hair still loose from whatever afternoon she had planned.

“You do not get to decide that. You do not get to blow up the one thing that has actually made me feel wanted because your pride is hurt. Ruby has been the only consistent thing in this house for months while you were chasing office drama and late meetings. And now you come home early just to spit in it?”

“She built the whole thing on a lie,” you fire back, the morning’s rage flooding back. “She told you I was fucking Cheryl. She used every staff social and every closed door to make you believe it. You let her into our bed on the back of a story that never happened. I am not going to keep the schedule running so the two of you can keep going.”

Natasha laughs once, sharp and humourless.

“And you expect me to believe you have been pure as snow? The way you look at her. The way you light up when she needles you about numbers. You came home this morning hard and angry and the first thing you did after I told you the truth was run straight to work where she is. Do not stand there and act like the injured party when you have been half-checked-out for longer than Ruby has been coming here.”

“I never touched her,” you say, perfunctorily. “You constructed an entire affair out of glances and competition and then acted surprised when I refused to keep pretending the Thursdays were still available.”

The argument spirals. Accusations about neglect and attention and who stopped trying first fly back and forth across the kitchen. Natasha brings up every cold morning and every rejected advance. You bring up every photo timestamp and every calm description of Ruby’s visits. The volume rises. At one point she slams her hand on the counter hard enough to rattle the kettle. At another you remind her of the handjob she gave you while showing the videos, the way she organised the evening lesson and then walked out, leaving you with the mess. Neither of you yields. The core of it remains the same: she believes the Cheryl story enough to keep defending the affair, and you refuse to let the schedule continue under a lie.

By the time the fight peaks the light outside has begun to shift toward late afternoon. Natasha is breathing hard, cheeks flushed, arms locked across her chest. You are standing on the other side of the kitchen with the same unresolved fury still burning. The house feels smaller than it did this morning. The Thursday that was supposed to belong to Ruby now belongs to the wreckage of the confrontation, and neither of you has anywhere left to put the anger that is still rolling between you.