“Oh shit,” he said.
He waited for the horror to settle into his body. Waited for something like shame, but he didn’t feel that. He didn’t feel it because he wasn’t as ashamed of being with her. That was the thing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, holding onto his forearms. “That was my fault. I shouldn’t have…”
“It’s not your fault. I’m not upset. I’m just going to have to have a conversation with him. But let’s get Billy put away, and I can take you back to my place, or…”
“I can go with you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll take you to the bakery if you want.”
“Yeah. Okay, I’d like that.”
So that was what he did, determination flowing through his veins.
He got her taken back to the bakery and drove out to Cody’s place. He could only hope that he was home and that… Marlowe wasn’t. Because he needed to do this with his friend, and only with his friend.
He had been careless, but he realized now that he didn’t really care about keeping it a secret. He didn’t really care if anybody knew.
Because when they had started out, he had felt like he had violated some kind of vow that he’d made to Cody, but that was when he had thought that it was only sex.
It wasn’t only sex. He had felt guilty in the beginning because she’d been a virgin, and she was ten years younger than he was, but it didn’t feel like such a big deal anymore. It didn’t feel like the thing.
She was Cara. And she belonged to him in a way that he was never going to be able to articulate. He didn’t know how to live with another person. He didn’t think that marriage and kids were on the cards for him, but part of him wanted it. And if there was ever going to be a person… It was going to be her.
He didn’t know if that was something that could ever… Ever happen.
But… The one thing he was sure of was that he wasn’t using her.
Cody’s truck was sitting in the driveway when he pulled up, and he stomped on the front porch, knocking on the door firmly.
Cody opened the door and looked him up and down. “I take it you saw me down at the arena.”
“Yeah,” Zane said.
“I swear to God, Zane, I wasn’t going to say anything to you if you didn’t want to say anything to me.”
“Well. It’s time,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. I told you that I would leave her alone, and when I said that, I meant it. I swear to God. I meant it. But it just didn’t… I couldn’t…”
“I understand,” Cody said. “Believe me. I wasn’t supposed to touch my employee whose husband had just left her, but goddamnit, I did.”
He hadn’t expected this. He had thought that his friend would be angry. He thought that he would feel like Zane had betrayed his trust.
“I felt like shit. Lying to you. I don’t… I know that I don’t share things with people, and I don’t talk to anybody about much of anything, but…”
That wasn’t really true anymore. He’d been talking to her. He had shared his heart with her. Had shared his trauma with her. His pain. And that made all this feel a little bit slower. Made him feel like he should be able to tell Cody to talk tohim. Because now he had been talking to somebody, he realized that it helped. That it made things feel clearer, that it made them feel easier.
That it made him feel less alone.
“I’m not just fucking her. I care about her. I don’t know what that means, because I’m… I’m really messed up, Cody. And I know that we’ve never talked about it. I know that we’ve never talked about my life, I know that… I know you don’t know.”
Cody nodded slowly. “I know it’s something.”
“Let’s… Let’s go inside.”
He told Cody everything. All about his family, and Cody sat there with a blank sort of look on his face. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I know. I know it’s heavy. It makes people… feel that way. But I’ve never really talked about it to anybody. Until Cara.”
