“You have everything you need?”

“Mm-hmm. I dropped my bags off with Max last night. He’ll have them for me in the car when he picks me up.” I checked the time again. Nearly three o’clock. The day had crawled by like a tortoise stuck in drying cement. Or something similarly slow.

“And you’ve packed for every possible turn of events?” Megan asked.

“I’m not sure how many turns of event you expect. Max says they have a heated pool so I chucked in my best swimsuit. I packed good walking shoes in case that’s a thing. My running clothes. Outdoor stuff in the case there, I don’t know, sailing…and nice, sedate clothes for dinner.”

“What about something for nighttime?”

“I have pajamas.”

“I don’t mean sleeping.”

I was glad she couldn’t see my face. “Well, gee, Megan. In that case, I won’t need anything, will I?”

“Atta girl!”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“What’s the point of saying no? You know that’s where this is going, so why not just relax and enjoy it?”

I chewed my lip, knowing she was probably right. This was it. The weekend in which we would have sex. It seemed inevitable. The two of us, sharing a room. He would probably smell good like he always did, the jerk. Tempting me. Maybe I’d catch a glimpse of him changing, get a look at his muscular torso and shoulders as he took off his shirt. And my heart would beat faster and the blood would rush to my lady parts and that would be the end of that.

“Hello? You still there?”

“Oh, sure. I’m here.”

“Like I said, just enjoy it. Relax and have fun this weekend. What can be more delicious than getting naked with cutie patootie? Oooo…imagine him grabbing you by the hips and slamming into you.”

“Megan!” I giggled, my face burning.

“Try getting that mental picture out of your head.”

“Ugh, I’m gonna kill you.”

“You’re welcome and have a great time, okay? Whatever you do don’t let the Beast and his Beastess get to you.”

“That’s gonna be real hard.”

“I mean it. Ignore them. Hang on to cutie patootie's arm the whole time. And most important: Keep me in the loop.”

“Will do.” I was smiling as I hung up. Right, I needed to get the idea of Max’s naked body out of my head. He was picking me up in a few minutes, so blushing over the thought of him in all his glorious nakedness wouldn’t be helpful.

“Hey.”

I swung around in my chair to find Josh standing at the entrance to my cubicle. He was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, with a studied air of casualness on his face. I sighed internally. He was the absolute last person I felt like talking to just then.

What did I ever see in him? The question kept perplexing me. Nothing about him seemed attractive to me. I used to think his puppy dog eyes were cute, sort of helpless and sweet. Now I just found them pathetic.

A shame, since he was going all-out to look sheepish and cute. It was really making me want to punch him in the balls since they were at eye level.

Luckily for him, I had to be friendly, or at least civil. We still had to work together, never mind the coming weekend. I guessed that was why he was there. “Ready for the weekend?” I asked brightly.

“Yeah, I’m all packed up. Alexander said we should try to be there by six, right?”

I nodded. Of course, I knew that as I had received the same email from Alexander telling us traffic going out on a Friday got crazy from five to seven o’clock. He suggested leaving early (“just this once, ha ha ha”) to get there before the roads jammed up.

“Have you ever been there?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I have no idea what to expect.”

“I thought you ran in those circles all the time,” I said. It was easy to fall back into my old role of supporting him and making him feel better. When we were just talking like two normal people, I could pretend the humiliation he’d put me through hadn’t happened. I could pretend he hadn’t lied to me and made me look like a trollop. I could pretend he wasn’t a spineless liar.

“My parents do. Sure, I’ve been out to the Hamptons before, but it’s not really my scene. It’s more Lill’s thing than mine.”

I almost gagged at his use of her nickname. Lill. Why did he have to go and mention her name? Like I wouldn’t see enough of her over the weekend. Like her very presence wasn’t enough to make me wish I could sink into the floorboards and never come back. I’d already had nightmares about her cornering me at the house and tearing into me—literally, with claws and everything. I’d seen the blood and fire in her eyes as she accused me of everything from stealing her man to causing the housing crisis back in 2009. I mean everything.

I faked a merry laugh. “Then I guess it’ll be your thing soon, huh?”

His face changed when I joked like that, and I remembered him looking the same way when Max joked along similar lines at the party.

“Lill will make a good wife,” he said defensively.

I pitied him then. Max’s explanation at the party had cast the whole ugly thing in a different light. There was no excuse for cheating, ever, but when I saw it as evidence of his weakness it softened the blow. I couldn’t hate somebody I could identify with. I was not perfect.

“I’m sure she will. Good luck to you.”

He nodded and shifted his position.

“What’s there to do out there?” I asked since he didn’t seem to be ready to leave my cubicle. I did make it a point to start wrapping it up, though, packing up my laptop and locking my drawers.

“Oh, you know, the usual stuff.”

I had to laugh. “No, I don’t know. Hello? Remember who you’re talking to here.”

He chuckled. “Right. Sorry. Uh, I think Alexander has a sailboat. I know they have a heated saltwater pool and a hot tub. Tennis, but it’s probably too cool out for that. I think their property includes hiking trails, too.”

“Sounds nice. I’m sure we’ll have a good time.” Oh, I was such a liar. Such a terrible, dreadful liar. If he knew, he didn’t seem to care. He was probably relieved I wasn’t crying and threatening grievous bodily harm after he crushed my hopes for our happy life together. Or something like that.

Why wasn't he walking away?

Why didn't he get the hint?

In his next breath, he explained what he was really doing there. "I've been meaning to ask you something. I hope you don't take it the wrong way."

“Ooh, mysterious,” I chuckled.

“It’s just…I mean…” He looked around, making sure we weren’t overheard. Tracee was hard at work in her office, probably wondering why she didn’t get an invite to the Hamptons. “Well, I thought you and I were a thing.”

I blinked once, twice. When I realized he wasn’t going to keep talking, I prompted him. “And?”

“And I guess I was just wondering, well…”

Suddenly, I knew exactly what he was going to ask.