And while a huge part of me wanted a quick hookup, it wouldn’t be “no strings” with him. There were very big, very personal strings attached to Troy. Jenna would never forgive me, and my friendship with her was worth more than a night of meaningless sex. It was incredibly likely I’d already damaged it beyond repair.
Only if you tell her what you did.
My heart sank into my stomach. I was a terrible friend.
He’d commented that I’d gotten dressed quickly, and my tone was urgent. “I did. You should probably too, because . . .”
I tried to assemble the right phrasing in my head, but nothing sounded right, and as time dragged on, Troy’s posture began to stiffen.
“Because,” he said flatly, “this was a mistake.”
Hurt lurked in his eyes, but I only caught it for a moment because he bent, scooped up his shorts, and jammed a leg into them. I couldn’t hold his gaze as he finished pulling them on and did up his fly. My shame was too powerful.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” I said quietly, “but I shouldn’t have asked you to . . .” I took the cowardly way out and let him fill in the rest of the words I wasn’t saying. “I wasn’t thinking, and I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about.”
That couldn’t be true because I felt guilty as hell.
Silence hung awkwardly between us, growing more uncomfortable than the heat. He had his shorts on, but his t-shirt was still a heap on the floor, and sweat darted down his chest in erratic zigzags, each droplet enticing me to follow its descent.
But an electronic trill cut through the air. I was so disoriented, it took a second to realize it was my ringtone. I reached out to pick up my phone, but as the name flashed across the screen, I hesitated.
It rang again, but I didn’t move.
“You need to answer that?” Troy sounded guarded, but curious.
I swallowed a breath. “It’s my husband.”
It was a habit that hadn’t died yet, and my thoughtless comment set him on alert. His expression darkened. “I thought you were divorced.”
It’d taken so long to sort out since Clark had been a jerk and he’d legally been my husband until he’d signed the papers. I’d opened the envelope this afternoon, seen the signature, but the totality of it sank in just now.
I was finally divorced.
“Ex-husband,” I corrected. “Sorry, I’m fighting twenty years of habit.” I grabbed my phone and tapped the screen, sending the call to voicemail. “And no, I don’t need to answer it.”
“Y’all were married for twenty years?” Was Troy thinking now about the enormous age difference between us? When I’d walked down the aisle, he’d been a toddler.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s funny how, in the final few years, Clark never wanted to talk to me, not until I asked for the divorce. Now he calls me all the freaking time.”
Why was I telling him this? I shook my head, trying to rattle the awkwardness away, and pulled my shoulders back to straighten my posture. I didn’t feel confident, but I could pretend I did.
“Troy,” I started, unsure of what to say next.
He thought he knew what was coming. “This is where you tell me I’m fired, right?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just . . . I took advantage of you. I’m sorry. That won’t happen again.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You sure? Because I’m okay with it happening again.”
Eagerness fluttered in my stomach, but I squashed it down. “Well, it can’t.” I frowned. “Besides everything else, I’m too old for you.”
Goddamn that sexy smile that lurked on his lips and how his tone patronized. “If you say so, Ms. Graham.”
I sighed my frustration. “It’s Erika.”
He was about to deliver a retort, but my phone rang again and interrupted him. When I glanced at the screen and didn’t answer, he tilted his head. “Your ex again?”
“No.” I swallowed painfully. “It’s, uh . . . your mother.”
Erika
Jenna Hanson never went without a manicure. Her nails were perfectly shaped and painted every other week, and she usually opted for neutrals, so it would go with anything. But tonight, her fingernails were a Tiffany blue, and they were hard to miss as she tapped them absentmindedly against her glass.
She’d fixed herself a Moscow mule with dinner and offered to make me one, but I’d poured myself a glass of sweet tea from her fridge instead. It was Thursday evening, and Lauren’s set wasn’t until ten, so after dinner I’d need to drive downtown. I’d ordered takeout for Jenna and I and brought it over to her place, hoping to use our ‘girls’ night’ as an opportunity to come clean about what had happened with her son.
Troy and I hadn’t talked about it. I’d ducked out of the sweltering pool house to take Jenna’s call, which was awkward and ran longer than I wanted it to, and by the time I was finished—he’d vanished. The pool supplies had been put away, and the back gate closed.
It’d been two days since that afternoon, and it was clear he hadn’t told her. If he had, I would have received an angry phone call or visit from my friend by now. Jenna’s blood ran hot, and she had a quick temper, but it also meant she was quick to forgive, and I hoped it’d be true this evening.
It wasn’t surprising he hadn’t told her. After Troy finished college, he’d been unable to find a steady job and temporarily moved back in with his parents. Tensions had reached a breaking point in February.
They’d had a huge fight, their first ever, she’d told me. He was a good kid—smart, caring, and respectful. But he was still a kid to her, and he’d struggled with his independence while living under his mother and stepfather’s roof.
Mostly, Jenna had confessed, it was because she was micromanaging him. Her husband, Bill, owned a construction company, and she’d been pressuring Troy to take a position there, which he did not want.
“Nobody likes their first job,” she’d said to me, when she’d relayed the story.
He’d rebelled against the offer for months, worried that once he got into a job, he wouldn’t be able to escape it.
But Jenna was nothing if not persuasive. The woman could sell you a recipe for ice, and you’d walk away feeling like you got a bargain. We’d met when Clark and I bought our house and hired Bill’s company to remodel the kitchen. Jenna was an interior designer and had helped me come up with a better footprint for the space; plus, she talked me into all the upgrades and high-end finishes that had made the kitchen my favorite room of the house.
We’d become fast, loyal friends.
Maybe loyal wasn’t the right word to use anymore.
I stared at my glass of sweet tea as she talked about a mix-up with an upholstery order that resulted in a client’s chair being recovered in a flamingo pattern.
“It was wild, I tell you,” she said. “I was speechless, and then the woman turns to me and says she likes how quirky it is.” Jenna tossed her sandy blonde hair over a shoulder. “It’s a statement piece,” she muttered, “just not sure I liked what it was saying.”