Chapter 37

GETTY

Since things are slower at the bar, I use the extra time to scrape the paint off my hands that didn’t come off in the shower. I keep discovering it in new spots and yet I don’t care, because my mood is through the roof. Not even the annoying guys at table eight, who keep complaining that their beer has too much foam, can dampen my mood. Impossible when the man I’ve unknowingly fallen madly in love with wants to try to turn this friends-with-benefits thing we have going into something more.

To say sleeping was difficult is an understatement. And I’m definitely feeling it now, four hours into my shift, with weary eyes and an achy back. But after his phone call my mind kept wandering to all the possibilities life holds for us. Fate just might be on my side this time around. I spent hours on his painting of the Indy car. Wanting it perfect. No, needing it to be perfect, because it’s sitting adorned with a bow on his dresser for when he comes home. A “Congrats on the great race.” An “I’ve never painted anything for anyone and yet I feel so strongly for you that I had to create this for you.” A “Welcome home, I missed you, and I can’t wait for this next step with you.”

Excitement fuels me through the day. Plus the knowledge that he’s high in the sky somewhere right now flying home to me. Bringing his sweet kisses closer. His infectious laugh. The sense of calm and safety he carries with him.

My good mood has probably grown annoying to bystanders. And yet after so many years of my having to fake every emotion, it’s kind of cool to just feel everything and not hide anything.

When I return from the storage room, Liam and a few customers are crowded over something at the other end of the bar. The minute they see me, the huddle breaks up. So I stand there observing their suspicious activity for a moment. And I don’t know how I never realized it before, but when men don’t want you to know something, they’re not exactly subtle in trying to act like nothing is going on.

At a loss, I pull the bar towel from my apron and wipe my hands, eyes still scanning the group, trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s only when I walk their way that Liam lifts his eyes again and meets mine. The look on his face is all it takes for me to know I’m not going to like whatever it is.

“Liam? What’s going on? What are you hiding?” Tell me.

“Need something, Getty?”

My eyes narrow. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I don’t like the sudden twisting in my stomach. I glance around the bar. Looking for my father. For Ethan. I don’t see them. But one of them usually accompanies the uneasy feeling that’s swamped me.

“What’s going on, Liam?”

“Nothing,” Liam says the same time another patron says, “Hella free publicity.”

A guy I rarely see in here gets elbowed by Jim, sitting next to him, and leveled with a glare from Liam. It takes me a minute to place who he is. Jerk of a guy. Rumors of a controlling wife who doesn’t let him out much. Likes his whiskey cheap and tips even cheaper.

But right now I don’t care shit about who he is, because I want to know what he means.

“Free publicity? What do you mean?” I take another step closer as buttons on cell phones are pushed so that apps close out. Wide eyes greet me. Mouths remain silent.

“Just tell me, Liam.” I know he’s my boss, but something is wrong. And I don’t know what he’s protecting me from, but his sigh when he reaches for his phone causes goose bumps on my arms. He shoos the guys around the counter away, an extra glare given to Jim before he slinks away to another table.

“There was a picture posted on Instagram this morning. They tagged the bar, so some of the guys who follow my account saw it.”

“Okay . . .” I’m not seeing why this is such a big deal or what it has to do with me in any way, shape, or form. And then I get it. It’s probably a scantily clad chick and he’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to show me.

Now I feel like an ass for pressuring him. And overreacting to boot.

“I can handle it, Liam. I’m a big girl.”

He blows out a breath as I reach for his phone so I can see the picture. But when the screen flickers to life, it takes a minute for my mind to accept what I’m seeing. Or to process anything beyond the holy shit that keeps running on repeat through my shocked mind.

The selfie was taken askew. Zander’s head on a pillow, face angled to the camera, eyes closed. Sound asleep. The tattoos on his back are visible, sheet pulled down low so the top of his ass can be seen.

The problem isn’t him. Well, more so, the problem is the person taking the selfie that included Zander. Her blond head of hair looks mussed, painted blue eyes are smudged, and pulled tightly around her braless breasts is a white T-shirt with the distinctive Lazy Dog Bar logo. The one that Liam gave Zander before he left.

I swear I must blink my eyes a hundred times while I try to process how the image could be misleading. But when I scroll down to the caption, my heart and stomach drop.

@ZanderDonavan definitely not a lazy dog in the sack. This girl wore his ass out. Thanks for the shirt @LazyDogBar. It looks better on me than him. He looks better on me too. #RacerDown #VictoryLane #SexyZexy #MisterOrgasm #MansGotGoodHands #SexGod #NailedHim #SorryLadies #TeamDonavan

I lick my lips and strive for some kind of composure. The noise of the bar sounds like a jet engine roaring in my ears and I’m having trouble fighting the tears that burn at the backs of my eyes. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. Every single emotion I’ve reveled in over the past twenty-four hours has just come crashing down around me.

I’d love to refute it. To say the picture is fake. That it can’t be real. And yet I know it’s him. Those tattoos. Plus the fact that’s his preferred position to sleep. And I recognize the thumbnail turned blue from where he hit it with the hammer a few weeks ago. Know the shirt is real because it’s the same one I have on.

It’s a struggle to breathe. To comprehend. To function. And yet I feel so damn much. More than anything I’ve ever felt in my life and in a way I never want to feel again.

Liam tries to take the phone from my hand, but I hold tight to it, not wanting to let go just yet and wanting to stomp my heel into the screen at the same time. I take one last look at the picture, at her Instagram account name, @RaceBunnyBabe, and give it to Liam without a fight.

“Can I . . . I need to take a break?” I ask him as I walk to the back room without waiting for an answer, feeling the weight of all the stares from the patrons on my back.

“Getty,” Liam calls after me, but I really don’t want to talk to anyone. “Getty.” Again. All I want to do is cover my ears and close him out. “The bar’s slow today. Why don’t you head home?”

My eyes flash up to his. His face expresses complete concern and apology, and I look away as quickly as I can while I untie my apron strings. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

Anger hits me on the brisk walk home. And not just anger, but a rage I’ve never known before. Not even toward Ethan. Like the air you inhale feels like fire and your chest hurts and your eyes burn and your whole body trembles, but you can’t stop any of it from happening.

How could he? That’s all that repeats in my head over and over and over. Am I really that gullible? Am I really naive to think this famous race car driver and desirable man could want to stay with me of all people? A shell-shocked woman recovering from her abusive past in this small island town? That he’d want to give up his lifestyle of fast cars and obviously faster women for this?

He played me for a fool. Took the small comfort zone I’d made in this little town where gossip thrives and made me a mockery to everyone. Paraded me around to just make fun of me in the end.

The ache in my chest increases tenfold as the questions run rampant in my head. How could I be so wrong? Why did he call me and say he wanted more? Was that his way of trying to make me feel better? But even that makes no sense.

Flinging open the door to the house, I finally allow the angry tears to run down my cheeks. I’m restless despite the crying jag. Antsy. Want to lie down and cry from the hurt that won’t stop, and at the same time can’t sit still.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s an explanation.

How?

So I run back into the kitchen and grab my phone out of my purse. With trembling fingers and blurry eyes I pull up the Instagram app. Have to wait for it to download onto my phone. I search for the name @RaceBunnyBabe. I don’t understand the screens or the pages but see that there is only one picture under her account. The one of her and Zander this morning. I’d had a small ounce of hope this was wrong, but it’s shattered by this.

Then I notice the comments below the pictures this time. The jealous women wishing they were her. The crass comments about if he’s really golden in bed. The Where was this taken?

And it’s that comment that draws my attention. Because there was a response. I don’t want to click the button to find out the answer, but I have to. The Four Seasons.

All my hope leaves with the next sob that falls from my mouth. My fingers switch over to the Messenger app. I don’t care if he’s in the air right now. I text him: Don’t bother coming home. I don’t want to see you. You made your point. Have a nice life.

Pacing the house, I check my phone constantly. Know he’ll have landed and will be heading this way soon—through the traffic, on the ferry, to the house. I can’t focus on anything else. Can’t concentrate. I know he will text me back. Not what he will say. It’s not like there’s a suitable explanation anyway.

It’s on what feels like the five hundredth pass through the kitchen that I see his damn to-do list. The Miss the handyman while he’s gone item he added onto it. And a fresh set of anger erupts within me. What a joke he played on the naive roommate. The fun he must have been having, calling to sweet-talk me while she was probably sitting in the hotel room beside him!

I don’t know what provokes me but I see paint front handrail and since he’s basically finished with the back deck, I know that’s the one major thing he has left to do. Well, screw him. I’ll do it for him so he has no excuse or need to be here at all.

None.

Suddenly I’m a woman on a mission. A mission fueled with spite and anger. I head to the shed for the paintbrushes and scan the cans for the wood stain. When my eyes hit a can with a tester drop of Pepto-Bismol pink on the lid, I grab it without any thought of right or wrong. Morality is out the window by the amount of pain he’s caused me with his betrayal.

All I can think of is I’ll show him. Focus on how his stupid list will be complete, so he can keep his word to everyone else but me, and then he’ll be done here.

I’ll never have to see him again.

I stroke the brush over the sanded wood. The settled paint doesn’t spread well and I have to close it back up and shake it the best I can. Get my aggression out on a can that’s years old from the previous owners. But I don’t care. Because I’m doing something. Anything. To try to stanch the hurt. Dull the pain. Stop my feelings of stupidity.

And so I paint through the tears. Big gulping sobs that splash off my face and onto the railing, where I have to repaint what it washes away. It’s sloppy and messy and as much as I’m going to hate myself in the morning for this, right now it’s what I need to do.

When I cover it all and then some—with huge drip marks included—I collapse on the steps, drop the paintbrush, and just cry: elbows on my knees, head in my hands, feel-sorry-for-myself, want-to-kick-him-in-the-balls tears.

The headlights startle me. I’m not sure how much time I’ve spent staring into space. How many times have the tears started and stopped? Probably just as many times I’ve cursed him out for being cruel and chastised myself for being just what my father said I was, gullible. But when the headlights pull down the street and the car door slams shut, I don’t think I have the effort to fight him.

Until I hear him call my name.

“Getty!” Full of worry. Fear. Confusion.

“No!” I’m on my feet in an instant, back to the wall, heart on lockdown. “You don’t get to come here anymore. LEAVE!”

“What the fuck is going on, Getty? Why the hell did you paint that pink? Why is Liam calling me chewing me out? Why aren’t you answering your goddamn phone? What the hell is he talking about a picture for?” His voice echoes around the empty street as it escalates in pitch with each and every word. His face is the perfect picture of panic in the waning daylight and I have to begrudgingly admire what a great actor he is. How he made me feel and believe when he had no intention of following through on anything he ever said to me.

“Go away, Zander. Go away and don’t ever come back.” This time when I speak, my voice is quiet but livid. “You said friends with benefits would end in disaster; well, thanks to you, it did.”

“Will you please tell me what in the fuck is going on here?” He goes to grab my arms and I jerk back as fast as I can. So much so, his eyes grow wide, my response telling him I’m dead serious.

“Was it funny to you to call me, tell me you want to try at something more between you and me, us, and then turn around and fuck the girl in your bed?”

“Getty. What? What are you— Talk to me. Please.” He runs his hand through his hair. It stands atop his head as his eyes beg me for answers that he already damn well knows from firsthand knowledge.

I stomp in the house and pick up my phone on the counter. It’s easier to show him than meet his eyes and hear his pleading. The screen is covered in notifications from him, but I don’t even read them. Don’t have the time to care. As the wood floor creaks to tell me he’s followed me inside, I open the Instagram app and shove the screen out to his face.

His eyes widen farther. Lips pull tight. Panic passes over his features as his eyes flicker from the picture back to mine several times as he figures out what to say. How to get out of being caught.

“You want to know what the fuck’s going on?” I scream. “That’s what’s going on. You. Screwing. Her.”

He stumbles back and sits on the arm of the couch. “No, Getty. No. That’s not me.”

“Not YOU?” My voice cracks from the emotion, from the tears, from the hurt that’s eating my soul alive right now. “Yes, Zander, yes. It is you. How can you say otherwise? The bruised thumbnail. The goddamn shirt from the bar. She. Has it. On! You’re naked. At the Four Seasons. It all looks pretty fricking obvious to me.”

“No. It’s—”

“Thanks for proving me right. That all men are exactly like Ethan. Even when I believed you weren’t. The difference is what you did was ten times more cruel.” My sob hitches and I reach my hands out to keep him away from me. “Don’t touch me.”

“Fucking Christ, Getty.”

I scamper back against the counter as he paces the room. Even lost in my own emotion, I can sense the turmoil that radiates off him and fills the kitchen. “She was there last night. At the club. At the fucking suite when the guys brought the party back.”

I jump as his fist tears through the drywall. His own yelp of pain echoing right after it. Looks like despite the pain, he’s going to do it again. But all I can focus on is that he knows who this woman was. He’s admitting that she was there with him.

“She tried to hook up with me. I remember that. She tried and I told her no thanks. And then I went to bed. God, I was so fucking drunk that I don’t remember anything much after that. The door to my room opening. The noise and light of the party in the suite. Then closing. I don’t know.” When he looks up to me, if I had thought my heart was broken before, I might have been mistaken, because it’s definitely broken now. Zander’s face is wrought with apology. His body tense but defeated. Everything about him screams guilty right now when all I want him to do is give me a definitive answer.

And he doesn’t. Seems he can’t.

He just stands there with puppy dog eyes in a conflicted blue and mouth lax as he tries to remember the one thing he can to right our world.

“Please tell me you’d know whether you slept with her or not.” Tears slowly slide down my face because for some reason this seems so much harder to comprehend. Blatantly doing it is one thing. Knowing it ahead of time. Purposefully disregarding me.

But to sleep with someone, ruin what I thought we had, and it was so nonmonumental that he doesn’t remember it at all? That his disrespect of me was so great that he’d ruin us for nothing?

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t stand still. And I can’t move. So I just stare at him with wide eyes and a heart that hurts so damn bad because I’m so in love with him right now and hate him all at the same time.

How did I let this happen? Again?

I’ve been cheated on. My husband had slept with countless women while telling me that I wasn’t good enough. And now I’m looking at a man who was telling me I was good enough and he’s gone and done the same thing? What does that say about me? That he was just telling me these things but that I wasn’t satisfying him regardless?

I can’t think straight. Not with him looking at me with those eyes and the unknown stretched in between us. Not with my past a constant fog in my mind telling me I deserve exactly this.

I refuse to accept that this is my lot in life: for men to think I’m disposable and only good enough until they want someone better.

Like a hot blonde with a great rack who services racers in hotel suites.

My sobs are the only sound in the hollowness of the house. Both hands cover my mouth as I try to fight it off and not completely break down in front of him, but the force racks my body.

“Getty. Please. There’s an explanation.”

My laugh hitched with my sobs is all I can emit. All I can give him when I’ve already given him so much of myself. More than I should have. More than I ever intended to: my trust, my history, my heart, my desire. My truth.

“We need to—”

“I need you to leave, Zander.” My voice is serious. Quiet. Barely audible. And yet the jerk of his body, the flash of his eyes up to mine, tell me he can’t believe what I’ve just said. “Please. You can’t be here tonight.”

And I know I’m lying. Know I’m weak and can’t tell him that we’re over. That I need him to leave because I can’t breathe when he’s so close. And I need to breathe. To be able to think. To have more resolve in my voice when I tell him we’re over for good. That it’s perfect timing for him to head back to his old life.

The one without me. The one where he meets women like her.

Because I can’t stay with a man who doesn’t remember if he slept with someone. Every trip, every race, the worry will always be there. The doubt will always linger. And I can’t live like that again.

So I lie. I ask him to leave for the night, stay at the hotel, so we can clear our minds and talk when we are calmer. Tell him I need time. That I need to think.

I stay where I am as he walks down the hall and gathers some of his things. I don’t move when he stands inches in front of me with my welcome-home painting tucked under his arm and his eyes pleading for me to give him the benefit of the doubt. I refuse to cry when he presses a soft kiss to my head before resting his forehead against mine in silence.

And I hold back the confession I was going to make tonight as I watch him close the front door, climb in his car, and drive away.

I love you, Zander.

I was going to lay my heart on the line and give you the only thing of myself I had left to give you.

And as I slide to the kitchen floor, tears on my cheeks and disbelieving hurt in my heart, I wonder if I had told him last night, whether it would have changed anything.

Or if it would just mean I’d hurt that much more right now.

That’s the problem with ifs. Of living with regrets.

You always wonder.

Even when the lies were exactly what you wanted to hear.