I must’ve looked like a wreck and clung to his hand resting on my shoulder.
Some of the cold stiffness that had been there throughout the dinner faded, and worry filled his gaze. “What’s wrong?” He glanced behind me. “Are you okay?”
I squeezed his hand and nodded, croaking out, “I’m fine. Let’s go.” Trying to be nonchalant and failing miserably, I speed walked through the tables, almost dragging him along.
“You don’t look okay.”
Glancing over my shoulder, some of the panic eased. They hadn’t emerged from the bathroom hallway. If I was lucky, they’d spend the next ten minutes fighting and we’d make a clean escape. “Maybe the accident is finally getting to me.” Yes, I’d lean on that sorry excuse if it meant getting out of here faster.
Near the restaurant entrance, Hunter released me and held out my coat.
Before I could slip my arms into the sleeves, a male voice interrupted our escape. “Hunter Saxton!”
Hunter spun around, and his lips spread into an approximation of a smile, the closest he’d sported since we’d arrived at the restaurant. He draped my coat back over his arm.
My dread grew.
We were so close to getting out—to getting away. Frustration brimmed higher, almost spilling over the edge at this whole situation and Hunter saying more in three minutes to this person than he had since we’d arrived for dinner.
“How are George and Gregg?”
“They’re great, high school seniors now.”
The two of them slipped into easy, casual conversation.
He seemed more interested in these other high school seniors than his own brother, but I could only deal with one disaster at a time and right now one would be solved by escaping this restaurant. “Hunter, I’ll meet you outside.”
His hand shot out. “It’s freezing out there and you don’t have your coat on. Mark, this is Sabrina. Sabrina, this is Mark.” Of all the times for him wanting to make up for being an asshole tonight, it was right at this moment.
“So nice to meet you.” I shook the man’s hand with way too much vigor. “Can I have my coat, so I can go?”
He helped me into my coat while talking and moving at exactly the twentieth of the speed I needed him to move at.
I checked over my shoulder.
Seth and his wife emerged from the bathroom hallway, and my stomach was seconds away from staging a revolt.
Keeping my gaze averted, I tracked them out of my peripheral vision.
They walked to their table, and some of the strain loosened, just enough for me to button my coat with trembling fingers.
“Hunter, I need some fresh air.” I tapped his elbow.
He looked over at me and nodded. “Sure, let’s go.” Saying goodbye and slipping his arms into his coat, he took his time.
I turned to the front doors. A pair of couples walked in, laughing and chattering, and blocked my escape.
Hunter’s presence behind me at least felt like a shield from the view of the restaurant.
“You’d better watch out.” The voice hit me even harder than the cold blast from the door on the other side of the vestibule. Her words boomed throughout the restaurant. “You should know your little girlfriend likes to try and steal other women’s husbands.”
36
Hunter
The words dumped on me like the icy, stinging spray of slushy snow from a passing car. They shot down my spine like daggers.
Sabrina turned with her eyes wide like she’d been hit with the same sheet of ice water. “Hunter, let’s go.”
“Who are you?” I turned to the woman who’d approached us out of nowhere.
She wasn’t familiar.
Names and faces came easily to me, but I hadn’t met her before and strangers didn’t normally approach me with such a stormy expression. The guy wasn’t one I recognized, although it was hard to get a good look at his face.
Behind her, a man with a sheepish look kept his gaze trained on the floor like he was a second from getting a smack on the nose with a newspaper.
“I’m the wife of the man your girlfriend tried to steal away.”
“Hunter, please, let’s go.” Sabrina pulled on my arm so hard I stumbled back.
“You know this guy?” I looked from her back to the man. This was her ex.
My first instinct was to tell the woman she was wrong and there had been a mistake. I glanced over at Sabrina, and she looked up at me with imploring eyes, begging me.
“I’ll tell you everything once we’re home. Please can we go?”
The woman seemed to have said what she needed to say and didn’t elaborate. I let Sabrina tug me out the doors and into the biting, cold air. My stomach didn’t feel like I’d had a full meal. It felt hollow, the numbness clawing at it, trying to deprive me of all feeling.
Instead of walking back to the apartment, I got us a taxi. Normally this would’ve been because I wanted to get her naked in record time, but this time it was because I didn’t want to delay the conversation. I shoved away the feeling trying to blanket me with quiet. I needed answers.
My thoughts whipped by like I was racing on a test track. With each pass the speed increased, and it felt like my grip on the wheel was slipping.
We sat in the cab with the middle hump between us like strangers sharing a ride. Her hands fidgeted in her lap.
She hadn’t corrected the woman. She hadn’t said she had the wrong person and she’d never even met that man.
The thud in my stomach came in intervals, ticking—like a bomb waiting for the clock to hit zero.
“Ask me whatever you want to ask me.” She peered over at me with a pained look.
Maybe she didn’t think I’d make it to the apartment or thought I might jump out of the taxi at the next light, if she didn’t tell me everything.
But I didn’t want to have this conversation here. I couldn’t. The platform I’d been walking on had shrunk to a plank throughout dinner, and now I was standing at the top of Liberty One on a tightrope. I looked to the driver and back to her. “When we get back to the apartment.”
We didn’t speak for the six-block trip, but it wasn’t the quiet comfort I felt when we lay in bed together with her head resting against my chest. Instead, this was a stifling, suffocating silence.
The situation sank in deeper—bone-deep. She had known him. She’d dated him. And she’d cheated with him.
My body worked on autopilot and I fought to get the control back, but I didn’t know if I’d be plowing straight into a brick wall.
In the apartment, I walked straight to the living room without even taking off my coat. Sabrina did the same.
I paced, unable to sit or stand. “Tell me everything.”
She perched on the arm of the couch with her shoulders rolled in. Her arms were crossed over her chest before she swiped them down the skirt of her dress. Her discomfort rolled off her in waves, although it was only the two of us here—in our apartment. “I met Seth two years ago. He seemed like a nice guy. We went on a few dates and after a few months, we moved in with each other. Things were good. He met my parents in Arizona. We spent most holidays together. And—” She dropped her gaze to her fingers, which she’d locked together. “And then, a couple days before I moved in with you, I found out he was married.”