Silence filled the call for a moment before he hesitantly asked, “Who is this?”
My brows pulled tightly together as I glanced at the screen of the phone to make sure I’d seen the correct name. “Savannah,” I said slowly. “I’ve known you since I taught your daughters’ dance classes.”
“Right, of course,” he mumbled, clearing his throat.
“Beau fell asleep,” I said when he didn’t go on, feeling awkward and embarrassed, and not sure why. “But I’ll give him a message for you.”
“No,” he said quickly. “It can wait ’til I see him tomorrow. You have a good night now.”
“You su—” I lowered the phone when the background noise of the call abruptly disappeared, trying to figure out what happened and why he’d been acting so strange.
As soon as I started my silent walk back to Beau, I looked up to find those midnight eyes open and locked on me.
“Hi,” I said lamely, the word nothing more than a breath. “Your phone was ringing—it was Kevin.”
He lifted his chin in acknowledgment, his voice all gravel when he asked, “What’d he say?”
“Nothing. Well, I’m not sure . . . it was weird. He said it could wait until tomorrow.”
Beau sat up and dragged a hand through his hair and then roughed a palm over his jaw before resting his forearms on his knees. Every movement slow and very clearly a tell that he was gathering his strength.
“We need to talk,” he finally said.
My head nodded, these fast, faint movements. “I know.”
His stare lifted to meet mine and his head shifted. The movement was so subtle, but it shouted that I was wrong in that way of his. Everything so big and commanding with the smallest of movements.
“We need to talk,” he repeated as he pushed to his feet. “Where do you wanna be?”
Nowhere.
With the way he was looking at me and preparing himself, I had a horrible feeling that my world was about to be ripped apart again. And I’d just managed to get to a point where I felt ready to work through what I already knew. I wasn’t sure I could handle something else on top of it all.
“Savannah,” he urged gently.
“I don’t, um . . .” I shook my head fiercely and forced myself to straighten. To stand tall and strong for at least a little while.
Or at least pretend.
I could go back to my imploded world later.
Turning, I headed for the large kitchen table and sat in my favorite chair, letting those walls build faster and faster as I struggled to hide every pain and fear behind them.
Beau stopped behind one of the chairs, hand on the back of it, and hesitated before pulling it out. “Do you want coffee or anything?”
“No, I’d rather you just say whatever you’re clearly afraid to tell me.”
He sank into the chair, his breath coming out in a giant rush as he folded his arms only to unfold them. Dragging his hands over his legs and clasping them together as he leaned forward.
Everything so telling and so contradictory.
The way he was working his jaw and the panic in his eyes. His restless movements. It was all anger and fear clashing together, and it had a pit of unease opening up in my stomach as I waited for what I would find out next.
“It’s going around town that I’m cheating on you,” he said after a moment, something like wrath flashing through his terror. “Currently.”
“With Madison?” I asked through clenched teeth, unable to relax my body as I waited for the shoe to drop.
He gave another slant of his head. “Stephanie Webb.”
It felt like I shut down after that.
I heard Beau explain what happened that afternoon with him, Stephanie, and Kevin, and how it escalated with the school. I heard him describe the scene at Hunter’s, and Emberly’s side of the story. The nonstop calls and texts he’d been getting. I even vaguely registered it was the cause of all the messages waiting for me when I woke up. But I just couldn’t connect to him or what he was saying or anything really because I felt numb.
If it was a delayed reaction to Emberly’s no-moving exercise, I didn’t appreciate it. If it was a result of my world imploding, I hated it. Or maybe it was just that I really couldn’t handle any more.
“Savannah.” Beau’s voice twisted around my name when I stood and began walking away, but I just held up a hand, needing to get away from there.
To think.
Breathe.
“I need a minute.”
I wandered through the house, feeling as if I didn’t know where I was going and like I didn’t want to be there. Like I needed to get away. But leaving the house when that kind of gossip was spreading through town would only fuel it.
When Beau found me a while later, I was in our bathroom, curled up in the dry tub, still wearing nothing more than his shirt. It hadn’t occurred to me until right then that I probably should’ve put something else on.
And the thought of covering up in front of him at all tore at my chest because I’d never felt exposed in front of Beau before then.
He stopped at the end of our long vanity and leaned up against it so he was facing me. Arms folded loosely over his chest and long legs stretched out in front of him. A picture so familiar that it made me ache.
We’d had so many conversations there, just like that, after a long day once the kids were asleep.
Me, soaking in the tub. Him, sitting beside it or leaning against the counter. Making my heart race and looking like my version of a dream even still, all these years later.
All that unyielding passion hidden behind clenched fists and intense looks. The rough laughs, rare smiles, and flashing dimples that were reserved for me. All wrapped up in the deepest blue eyes and jet-black hair and a toned body that promised comfort and security and threatened the cruelest revenges.
But this was different.
The silence that had followed Beau into the bathroom was filled with pain and regret and unknowns. The unstable connection between us was something we’d never encountered before. From the raw fear in his eyes, he was afraid of making the wrong move.
“Are you?” I finally asked a couple minutes after he joined me. When a crease formed between his brows, I clarified, “Having an affair with Stephanie—”
“Is that a joke?” he asked, words soft and filled with offense. “Savannah, you’re my goddamn world. No, I’m not cheating on you.”
“Have you?”
“No.” His head listed and his jaw strained as if realizing he’d answered too soon. “Other than that one night with Madison—which I can barely remember—no.”
I twisted in the tub to better face him, mind racing as I thought back to what Hunter had told me and tried to put it with what Beau was saying. “So, you did know it was Madison that night.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I remember tripping onto the bed you were in. I remember struggling to even get to a point where you and I were doing anything because we were that wasted. I remember repeatedly blacking out before my body basically gave the fuck out. Then you said you were gonna be sick.” He gestured off to the side. “The next morning, that was what I remembered: You had gotten sick. The only way I figured out it was Madison and not you was because you’d apparently been downstairs the entire night while Madison was upstairs, and she’d been convinced Hunter had come to bed when he hadn’t.”