“At the risk of sound totally disrespectful, where the fuck have you been? You told me a few hours when you left last night,” I hissed. “Did something happen?” She walked around the car and I noticed that her clothes were a little more disheveled too. There were a few dark spots around her neck, and the more I started to realize what had happened, the more I was wondering if it would have been better if she’d just gotten into a fight. “Did you… cheat on Venom?”
She let out a sigh. “I keep thinking I’ll be able to do stuff without having to explain it to you, but you’re too on the ball for that.” She waved a hand as she turned to walk inside. “Come on. I need some coffee for this hangover and I owe you some answers.”
My heart dropped into my stomach. For a moment there, I was dreading having to explain to Venom that I let Felicity leave after he explicitly told me not to do that, and something bad happened. Was I going to have to reveal his wife’s affair? He meant more to me than most people in my life, and even though I’d developed quite a love for Felicity as a pseudo-mother, I couldn’t just sit by and say nothing if she was sleeping around behind Venom’s back.
I set my barbell down and walked back into the house, following the sounds of Felicity already putting together a cup of coffee. She was still wobbly as she worked, so I walked over, took the can of coffee from her, and pushed her lightly towards the kitchen table. She didn’t argue, and dropped into the seat, setting her head down on the table’s surface.
My hands were shaking as I brewed the coffee. Was it fear? Was it disappointment? No one likes having the people they care about disillusioned, but it was worse than that for me. Felicity loved Venom, that was obvious. Did she do what she did just to get some help in our plight?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Felicity started. “And it’s not that. What I did has nothing to do with you, Venom, or finding Connor. It was a happy coincidence.”
I looked back over my shoulder at her. “I wouldn’t call it happy.”
“Garrett’s been in and out of lockup damn near our entire relationship, Deon,” she said. “The first few times, he’d say ‘Aw, baby. I don’t expect you to just wait around for me. You’re a woman, you have needs too,’ and I always thought it was insane, because I’d committed myself to him. Even before I got married, he was the only man I wanted. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything behind his back.”
I pulled a mug out from the cabinet as I listened to Felicity’s story. As soon as the coffee was done brewing, I poured some from the pot into the mug, not bothering to add any creamer. Carrying it over to her, I set it down on the table and then sat down across from her. She took a long sip in spite of its heat, and then let out a sigh.
“I figured you’d need it black,” I said.
She held up the mug cheers-style. “This is good. Thank you.” She looked up. “It was around the fifth time Venom went in. It was just a small stay, he wasn’t even upstate, just in the county jail, but I was struggling. He’d been so busy leading up to it, he hadn’t touched me in two months, maybe three? Then he went and got arrested. I thought I was going to lose my mind.” She grimaced at me. “Sorry. This probably isn’t what you want to hear about your dad and step-mom.”
“I think I’m far, far past an ordinary relationship with anyone at this point,” I replied. “And I think my best chance for feeling better is if you tell me everything.”
“He told me to do it. Garrett did. Nico and I have known one another almost as long as I’ve known Garrett, and we’ve always had a little thing for one another. Nico wouldn’t dare even look at me, but when Garrett told him it was okay, we just sort of fell into something. It was comfortable, like being cared for by a friend. He doesn’t expect anything more from me and I don’t expect anything more from him. I really did give him the info I got from the road show, and he really did pass it on to hopefully get us a lead, but once the business was over, he poured me a glass of wine, then another, then another, and…” She waved a hand through the air. “I feel horrible. I fell asleep because with all this shit going on, the level of stress relief it provided me knocked me out. I woke up with a bad hangover, so I still had to wait a couple of hours to be okay to drive. I wanted to call, but you don’t have a cell phone.”
“Not by choice,” I said. “This is convincing me that it needs to change.”
Felicity shook her head. “You don’t want them to be able to track you in any way. Trust me, this is best.”
“Well then you at least need to write down your cell phone number so I can keep it on me,” I said. “If I’d been able to call you at least, I wouldn’t have panicked.”
“I can do that.” She took another heavy sip of her coffee. “The thing is, though your dad did tell me it’d be okay, whenever he finds out it’s happening, it kills him, so I don’t tell him. I know you love him, I do too. He’s my husband, and if the circumstances were any different, I’d never, but—”
I held up a hand. “While I don’t like the idea of lying to Venom, I understand your position. It probably makes him feel better to think that you’re being taken care of without knowing the details, so I’ll keep it to myself.”
Felicity let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Do you think differently of me now?” she asked.
“No. If anything, it just makes me more angry that this isn’t all sorted out yet. I want everyone to be able to get back to their lives. You too,” I said. “You said you gave your info over to Nico?”
“I did, and he was over the moon. He’s pretty sure that the information I got is going to be the missing link to tracking Connor down, or at least someone who has helped him recently. He’s pretty sure it may take us back to Postings though,” Felicity said. “A two-hour hike into the lion’s den. If Garrett finds out we’re doing that, he’s going to go bat shit.”
“Well, there may be another option if it comes to that,” I said. “My brother is still there, and Cherri, and their friends. Nathan is probably the only man up to the task of facing Connor head on, so if we really do get a lead that takes us back to Postings, maybe you can make contact and give them what you know. We can leave me out of it, just in case, and Nathan can follow it up on his end. When it’s all set, I can go home and explain the rest.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Felicity said. “Although, if your brother really is as smart as you say he is, he’ll probably be able to figure it out.”
I nodded my head. “Oh, there’s no question Nathan will know the second you call him that I’m with you. All we can do is continue to deny it and let him finish the job. If he thinks I’m safe and that getting the job done will make it so I can come home, he’ll do it without question.”
Felicity smiled. “You have a lot of faith in your brother.”
I let out a little snicker. “Yeah. It’s kind of weird. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t actually know him all that well, but that one year we spent together, I loved being around him. Once I went missing, I’d call him and it felt more like having, you know, an actual brother. I put all the mess with Cherri out of my mind, because I know Connor manipulated him the most of any of us. I can’t imagine what he went through after I left. It still gives me guilt to this day.”