Addy banged her bare knee against the coffee table, but grit her teeth and continued to scrub furiously at the surface.

There’s no way he’s going to get to me, she thought.

“You okay?” Jack asked.

He was sprawled across the couch enthralled in the Patriots game on his laptop.

She refused to answer—or give him the satisfaction of rubbing her throbbing knee. Instead, she dropped to all fours and picked up the discarded Red Bull can she’d spotted that morning under the couch.

Men really are pigs, she thought.

Jack crunched into a handful of cashews as she moved to the counter that separated the living room and kitchen. She scrubbed at the gray and white counter aggressively. Some of the sticky streaks were almost impossible to remove.

What the hell is this? she wondered.

Addy figured after years of working in a restaurant, she’d seen and cleaned it all.

“You know, if you’re mad, you should just say so,” Jack called from the couch.

She whipped her head around and looked at him. His eyes were glued to the screen. He tossed the can of nuts, lid still removed and nowhere in sight, onto the coffee table she’d just cleaned and wiped his salted hand on the couch.

A rage whirled inside her, on the edge of explosion.

“I just cleaned that,” she snapped.

“Huh? What?” He glanced at her briefly, but the cheers from the screen pulled his attention back to the game.

“The table? The couch you just wiped your disgusting hand on? I just cleaned that.”

Addy slammed the bottle of cleaner on the counter and took the two steps to the couch to stand over him.

“Oh. Sorry, I’ll clean it later,” he replied.

Yeah, right.

“Hey! You wanted me to talk, I’m talking to you,” she said.

“I wanted you to say if you were mad! Not nag me about cleaning. This is my first afternoon off since—well, you know. Calm down.”

“Calm down?” She felt the anger that had been whirling inside her start to leak out. “Calm down! Don’t freaking tell me to calm down! I’m the only one who cleans this place, and—”

“Nobody asked you to.”

“What?” She shook her head in wonder.

“I said nobody asked you to. Forget about it, I’ll hire a cleaner,” he said with a shrug. “You should relax.”

“Hire a…” Addy couldn’t believe it.

Everything really was that easy for him, wasn’t it?

Not only didn’t he care that she’d been the only one cleaning up their place for the past few weeks, it was so easy for him to just replace her just like that.

“Must be nice,” she finally said.

“Huh?”

“I said it must be nice! To have money to just throw around like that.” She stormed into the kitchen and threw the cleaning supplies into the cabinet.

“Hey!” Jack jumped at the sound. “What, are you pissed again that I can afford a certain lifestyle?”

“You think I’m mad because you have money?” She nearly laughed. “That’s why you think I’m mad?”

“Well, since you won’t tell me why, I have to guess! I was trying to help you out. You seemed pissed off that you ‘had’ to clean, so I figured—”

“I’m not mad about the cleaning, Jack!” She could hear the trill in her voice, but couldn’t stop it. “I’m mad because—oh, never mind.”

She stomped into the bedroom as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.

“What the fuck,” she heard him mutter as she slammed the door.

Addy pulled off the shorts that reeked of bleach. Her breath caught when she saw the angry red bruise that had already blossomed on her knee.

That’s just great.

Part of her listened for the sound of Jack’s footsteps in the hall as she wiggled into jeans and a clean t-shirt, but they never came. Just canned sounds of some ridiculous game drifted in from the living room.

Addy took a deep breath and finger combed her hair out of the topknot.

He’s right, she had to admit. Why the hell are you wasting your time and energy picking up this place, anyway? It’s not like it’s your real home. Or a real marriage.

She grabbed her wallet, phone, keys and refused to even look in his direction as she made a beeline for the front door.

“Hey!” Jack said from the couch. “Where are you go—”

Addy slammed the door behind her with a satisfying bang. It cut him off completely and thankfully, she could no longer hear that godawful noise. Her heart rate began to lower as she fired up her little car and headed straight for the closest bar.

* * *

Hi, Addy. Haven’t seen you in forever. What’ll it be?”

Addy briefly remembered being partnered with the bartender for a science project in middle school.

“Uh,” Addy glanced at the time. Just one in the afternoon. “House white, I guess.”

She wanted a cocktail, something hard, but the last thing she needed were rumors swirling around town that she was a drunk.

By the time she’d finished half the first glass, the edge—compliments of Jack—had started to soften.

“Long day?” Addy jumped at the voice. When she looked up, Rosalie was beside her. “Mind if I join you?”

Addy shook her head, unable to speak. Rosalie had clearly just come off a grueling shift, but as always she still managed to look perfect.

The staple red lipstick was expertly applied, and the chignon’s wisps of escaped hair framed Rosalie’s delicate jawline perfectly.

“I’ll have the same,” Rosalie told the bartender, and gestured at Addy’s wine. “So. Jack’s off this afternoon. What are you doing at a bar alone?”

Addy began to blush. Crap. This wasn’t going to look good.

“I just…”

“Needed some alone time?”

Addy gave a soft laugh.

“Something like that.” She finished the last of her wine.

“Hold on,” Rosalie said. “Is that your first glass?”

“Yeah.” Maybe people will think I’m a drunk even with wine.

“I need to catch up.” In a single swallow, Rosalie downed her entire glass. “Ugh, couldn’t you have been drinking liquor or something?”

Addy laughed aloud. The first genuine laugh she’d had in a while, she realized. “I wanted to, but thought that might not look good at one in the afternoon.”

“Oh, who cares what anyone thinks?” Rosalie asked. “I just got off a shift from hell, and I’m guessing this is your first afternoon off in a long time. Two shots of Patrón, bartender.”

The girl with the jet black hair and full sleeves of tattoos who ran the bar didn’t even blink as she poured.

By their second shot, Addy had softened completely. Part of her couldn’t even remember why she’d picked that fight with Jack.

He came from money, she reminded herself. And what, he’s just supposed to start slumming it now that he’s with you?

“So, tell me,” Rosalie said.

Even in her buzzed state, she didn’t lose that special grace. Her cheeks had turned pinker and her smile was bigger than normal. It gave her a softness that enhanced her beauty even more.

“Tell you what?” Addy asked. She could hear a slight slur in her speech.

That’s what you get for drinking on an empty stomach.

“Why you’re here alone,” Rosalie said. “The real reason, not the PC one.”

“Oh.” Addy blinked and cradled the little empty shot glass in her hand. “I dunno,” she finally said. “I just needed to get away.”

Rosalie raised her brows.

“With how much both of you work, I’m surprised you don’t take every chance you get to be together. I remember how it was with our sched—sorry, forget I said anything.”

“It’s okay,” Addy said. “I mean, I know you two were together. It’s not like pretending otherwise will change that.”

“It’s still awkward. I get that. I wouldn’t be stoked either if I were in your place.”

“What do you mean?”

“If my husband worked with his ex all day. Especially the kind of long, odd shifts the hospital requires,” Rosalie said with a shrug. “Plus, it’s your turf, after all.”

Addy laughed. “My turf?”

“You know what I mean,” Rosalie said with a laugh. “I mean, this is your hometown. And then you have this whirlwind romance with a new man in town, just to have his ex show up and throw a wrench in the whole thing. It’s got telenovela written all over it.”

Addy shrugged.

“I’ll admit, it was kind of weird at first. The whole thing, not just you,” she said quickly. “Trust me, it wasn’t in my life plan to marry someone I’d only known for a short amount of time.”

More like less than twenty-four hours, she thought.

“The greatest things in life are rarely planned,” Rosalie said. “But can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“Honestly, if Jack had ever looked at me the way he looks at you? Just once? He and I wouldn’t have had a problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Part of the alcoholic veil lifted briefly. Addy was aware that this was important, but she couldn’t quite find it within herself to surface to soberness.

“It means he’s in love with you!” Rosalie said. “It’s obvious. With Jack and me, it wasn’t ever like that. I mean, I think we both pretended and maybe even hoped one day it would evolve into that—into love—but it just wasn’t in the cards.”

She shrugged.

Addy laughed.

“You’re crazy,” she said. “And drunk. And so am I. This probably isn’t the best time to be having deep conversations. ”

Rosalie shook her head and peered into the empty glass. “You’ll see.”