Jared: Is it Tuesday yet?
I barely suppress a laugh, grabbing the sauce I was looking for from the shelf and moving my shopping cart to the next aisle. My phone buzzes in my hand again when I stop to grab some of Charlie’s cereal and put it in the cart. I check the time and see it’s just after nine thirty. Okay, time to hustle. I left the kids at home with Leo, who said he’d take them to swim practice this morning.
I glance down at the next message.
Jared: You will come on Tuesday, right? You’re not going to try any avoidance shit?
I had thought about it, but really, I need to face him at some point. And besides, we agreed on just friends.
Me: Nope, it’s Saturday, and yes, I’ll be there. Don’t worry.
Jared: I miss you … friend.
I almost groan with frustration.
Jesus, I have no idea what I’m doing. But I have a feeling this “friends” thing isn’t going to work out.
Me: Jared …
Jared: Right, I get it. But it’s true. You’re kind of addictive, Blondie.
Me: I’ll see you Tuesday.
I put my phone away and rush to finish grabbing the groceries. Fiona is coming over this morning, and I stupidly forgot until I’d already raced out the door. I speed walk to the checkout and figure if I’ve forgotten anything, it’ll wait until I go back out on Monday.
Once home, I unload the car and quickly race to put it all away. I then clean up the living room, bathroom, and wash the breakfast dishes in the sink. I fix my hair and paint some lip gloss on. I’m just finishing up with some mascara when the doorbell rings. I cap it, chuck it in my makeup bag, put it in the cupboard, and head downstairs.
“Hey.” I pull the door open to a smiling Fiona.
“Good morning. Here.” She passes me some muffins. “Got them from that new bakery down the road because who has time to actually bake, right?” She laughs at herself, and I force one out too as I close the door behind her.
“Oh, God …” She breathes, running a hand along the gilded banister of our staircase. “Now I remember why I never like coming here. I always get severe house envy, you lucky bitch.”
If there’s one thing I appreciate about Fiona, it’s her brutal honesty; even if it sometimes makes you feel a little uncomfortable.
“Shut up, your house is amazing,” I say as I move past her into the kitchen and switch on the coffee machine. Her house is basically a mini mansion, marble flooring and sweeping staircases leading up to the eight bedrooms upstairs. It screams old money, but it’s classically beautiful. Kind of like she is.
“You’re right; it’s fabulous. But you know what that saying is.” She takes a seat at the island while I make our coffee.
“Milk and sugar, right?”
She nods. “Please, one.”
“Always wanting what you can’t have … that saying?” I ask.
“Uh-huh. Where are the children?”
I finish making her coffee and pass it over before turning back to finish my own. “Swim practice. Leo usually likes to take them if he’s not working,” I tell her.
Once done, I grab my coffee and place the muffins on a plate, taking both over to the island and sitting down across from her.
She raises a brow. “That’s right. You said he was a big swimmer in college?”
I nod, taking a small sip from my mug. “Yeah, he was captain of the swim team. Still swims at least a few times a week, too.”
She grins behind her mug, her green eyes flashing mischievously. “Ah, so that’s why he always looks so damn good. How old is he now anyway?”
He does look good. If anything, he’s even more attractive now than he was all those years ago when we first met. “He just turned thirty-four.”
It was a quiet birthday, and I cringe just thinking about the way I threw myself at him that night. He stiffened as soon as I pressed my bare breasts into his back. I haven’t tried since. That was two months ago.
“Shit, he’ll probably turn fifty and still look as good. My Dylan is getting quite the gut on him.” She smiles. “But then again, we do have a fucking great cook. Maybe if I fired her and he was forced to fend for himself, he’d lose a few pounds.” She shrugs.
I laugh because she’s insane. “Or he’d just ask you to cook for him.” I raise a brow pointedly at her over my mug.
She gets wide-eyed at that. “Oh God, no. It’s been so long. I don’t know if I’d even remember how.” She takes a sip from her mug, leaving a perfect lipstick smudge around the rim as she lowers it. “One time, Wendy, our cook, had the flu, and we couldn’t get a replacement in for two nights. Two nights. Dylan and I whipped up some grilled cheese and soup, but it took us half an hour to get the settings right on the damn fancy stove that we just had to have.” She rolls her eyes. “Breakfast I can do, but dinner? Never again. I have a spare chef on speed dial now.”
I burst out laughing, not knowing if she’s joking or being serious. But I know she’s probably telling the truth for the most part.
“I cook all the time,” I admit, shoving a piece of muffin into my mouth.
Her brows rise. “Every night?”
I swallow before answering. “Sure. Unless we order in, which we usually do every week or two.”
“You like to cook?” she asks, bewildered.
Shaking my head, I say, “I don’t hate it, but no, I don’t love it. I do like to eat, though, and after growing up having very little, it feels like a waste of money to pay someone to do something that I can do.”
She cackles. “Oh, shit. Next, you’ll be telling me that you clean your own house, too.”
My hand, which is holding another piece of muffin, pauses halfway to my mouth. “Yeah, I do. We get someone in to do the windows and pool every so often, but I clean the house.”
Her jaw drops open and hangs there comically as I smirk down into my mug.
“I’ve known you all this time, so why am I just finding this out now?”
I smile. “Because it’s not important? Besides, if I didn’t have something to do, I’d go crazy. Leo said he’d like me to stay at home, at least until the kids are in high school.” I bring the muffin to my mouth. “I agreed.”
“But …” she stutters through her red painted lips, “he’s worth millions.”
Swallowing the muffin, I frown, well aware of this. “I know.”
“Sorry, but shit, I just thought … if you had that much money, then you’d barely have to lift a finger.”
I brush the crumbs off my hands onto the counter and take a sip of my coffee. “Not always the case,” I mutter.
“So, because you were poor, you don’t like to waste money?”
That makes me laugh. “No, I love to spend money as much as the next person, but I’m just smarter about it because of my upbringing, I guess.”
She pats my hand as if she feels sorry for me.
“Oh, and don’t worry, Leo pays someone to come in and do the lawns every month, too,” I joke, but he really does, though.
It’s right then that I hear his car pull into the driveway and not even twenty-seconds later, the sound of the kids running in through the front door.
They stop in the entryway to the kitchen. “How was swimming?” I ask as they look around, probably searching for any sign of Rupert and Henry.
“Charlie won, again,” Greta groans and walks over to wrap her arms around my waist.
“Congratulations, baby.” Smiling warmly at him as he walks over, I pull him into my side to kiss his chlorine scented head then let him go. He immediately walks out of the kitchen with barely a wave at Fiona.
“And how’d you do, gorgeous?” Fiona asks.
“I don’t race, just practice,” Greta mutters. I rub her back. Swimming has always been Charlie and Leo’s thing that they do together, and I think she’s trying to find that something with her dad, too. Little does she know; she doesn’t have to. Their bond is already pretty special. But she’ll figure that out in her own time.
“Practice makes perfect. Here, muffin?” Fiona scoots the plate over, and Greta takes one before leaving the kitchen. I hear the TV switch on a minute later and cringe as I think about their wet pool hair dripping all over the leather couches.
I’m wondering where Leo is until he stops dead in the entryway to the kitchen a moment later.
Fiona turns on her stool. “Well, hello handsome, how’ve you been?” She beams at him.
He appears to be frozen, his tall frame stiff and unmoving. His top lip curls into a sneer, and his jaw is clenched tight as his ice-cold blue eyes land on her.
My own flit back and forth between them like crazy, watching the way Fiona visibly swallows as he seems to stare daggers at her.
He finally tears his eyes away, letting them skim over me. He clears his throat before turning around. “I’ll be in the office,” he mutters and disappears.
Fiona waits a moment before hissing, “Sheesh, what crawled up his amazing ass and died since the last time I saw him?”
She doesn’t realize that I’ve been wondering the same damn thing for months now.
I feel my cheeks heat—how embarrassing. It might be forced, but he’s managed to remain polite to most people. Especially our friends.
“I’m so sorry. I have no idea what’s gotten into him today.” I reach over and pat her hand.
“No, don’t be ridiculous. He’s probably just having a bad day or week. Dylan can be the same. I stay well out of his way when he gets irritable after a bad streak in the office.” She waves her hand around. “Anyway, where were we …? Oh, you have got to finally tell me where you got those photo frames I saw in the hall …”
We spend the next half an hour chatting, and to her credit, she acts as though my husband wasn’t a complete ass to her. But I’m only half here. The other half of me is wondering if maybe something happened between the two of them. Because even though I don’t think he’s cheated on me or has been having an affair, my gut is rolling right now. So I’m glad when she decides to leave. I need to take five minutes for myself.
I lean over the kitchen sink, and rinse my mouth out with a glass of water in an effort to stop the bile from climbing up my throat at the thought of my husband with anyone, let alone my friend.
Coughing, I place the glass down and stare, unseeingly, out the kitchen window to the manicured gardens outside, just as it starts to rain. My eyes fall on the Dahlias Leo insisted we plant as soon as he bought the house. He went a little crazy. There’s purple, pink, red—almost every shade you can find—as well as various shapes and sizes, including the huge Dinner Plate Dahlia’s. They’re spread throughout the beds in our front and back gardens.
My mom almost fell over when they finally all bloomed for the first time. Tears were falling from her eyes as she told me how lucky I was to find someone who loved me so completely. Who’d show it in ways that neither of us had ever thought possible.
I turn around and lean against the sink, drawing air into my empty lungs. Glancing up, I find him leaning in the doorway, watching me with what looks like remorse in his blue eyes.
He wouldn’t have. Not her. Would he?
As if knowing where my thoughts have gone, he shakes his head subtly and straightens from the wall. “I’ll go shower the kids.”
My eyes stay glued to where he was standing as my thoughts tumble and tangle together, trying in vain to make sense of something that just doesn’t make any sense at all.
Oh, what a fucked-up web we’ve weaved.