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Considering the game starts in less than two hours, yes.
“Nah,” Joey stares me dead in the eye, dark brows scrunched together. “Something happened. She looks like a cornered cat. Spill.”
I have no intention of saying anything, but the words bubble in my chest, rising up and out without my control.
“He’s gone. He left.”
For a moment, my apartment is silent. Quiet enough that I can hear my pulse thundering as my eyes burn. Then Max, my sweet, kind, baby brother, the one who rarely opens his mouth during sibling sit-downs, starts to laugh. Not just a chuckle, either. He’s laughing so hard that he’s bent over at the waist and I think I see tears in his eyes.
“I told you we should have left him at home.” I catch Madison’s eye roll before Max increases in volume.
“I can’t believe you’re laughing right now,” Hayley says, voice shaky, “Tristan is devastated. The love of her life just walked out.”
Max laughs harder. He slides down the cabinets to sit on the floor of my tiny kitchenette, legs stretched out in front of him, dark head thrown back against the cupboard that holds my assorted Tupperware.
“Now hold on,” Palmer says, “When you say he left, do you mean left left? Or like he had to travel again and will be back later?”
I love my siblings. I do. With my whole heart and soul… but right now I’m having serious fantasies about dropping them one-by-one into the garbage disposal and going back to bed.
“I’m pretty sure she meant he left her, like it’s over,” the ever-tactful Joey adds. “Why else would she be here all depressed and mopey?”
“She’s always kind of depressed and mopey.” Madison. “Besides, she’s still wearing her wedding ring.”
“And it’s a home game.” Palmer.
I glance down at my hand. It hadn’t even occurred to me to take it off. Should I? The wedding was fake, but everyone thought it was real. Do we have to keep pretending? Come clean? Do things ultimately change now that I know the truth? I’ve already blown the news to my boss’s boss’s boss. I cringe at the thought of having to go tell him it was all a misunderstanding. I’m pretty sure his heavy office door would slap my ass on the way out. What do we do about the ten-thousand-dollar check from Bob?
“Of course she is.” When did Hayley start crying? “Because she loves him. She’s heartbroken.”
Am I?
I’m angry he lied to me. I can feel it bubbling in my gut like lava, ready to ooze out and destroy everything it touches. I’m embarrassed he let me full steam ahead on a fake relationship. I yelled at him, cursed at him, I slept with him. All the while, he was keeping this from me. But am I heartbroken?
“Stop laughing,” Palmer barks at our brother. He’s wiping tears from his cheeks as his chest heaves. He’s gasping for air, trying to swallow down the next bout of guffaws.
“You guys are all idiots.”
My sisters gasp as I cross my arms over my chest. Max might outweigh me by almost eighty pounds, but I’m the one who used to push his hair back when he was sick, make his birthday cakes, ground him when he skipped school.
“He didn’t leave,” Max says. I open my mouth to protest, but my brother bulldozes on, “That man is gone for you. He’s head over heels. You had a fight. He’s giving you the space we all know you asked for, and he’ll be back. He’s probably strategizing how to deal with moody mcmooderson here, and he has to work. A game he has to win even if you get to mope about in sweatpants.”
“He lied to me, Max. He fucking lied and then he left.”
“And you didn’t ask him to leave, right?” Max rolls his eyes so hard I’m tempted to tell him they’ll stick. “You didn’t ask for space?”
Maybe I did.
“He lied to her.”Thank you Mads.“Are we forgetting that part?”
“Right, because you’ve never lied to her? I haven’t? Palmer? Hayley? Joey? Everybody lies about something,” Max says, “Anyone who says they don’tisa liar. The real question is why? What was the reason? What did he stand to gain? And was it something you can understand and forgive?”
Five sets of eyes—six, if you include Hela from her perch on the windowsill—swivel to me. I take a fortifying sip of cocoa and look down at my ring again. The one still on my finger. The one I haven’t taken off since that first morning in Vegas. Not when I was furious with Vic. Not when I was panicking about my future. Not when he was trying to talk to me and I wouldn’t let him get a word in edge-wise.
“We aren’t actually married,” I say into my mug, hoping the words are muffled enough to get lost, but also clear enough that I don’t have to repeat myself.
Max laughs again, but Hayley and Madison suck in air in a gratifying gasp.
“Explain,” Joey says.
