Page 82 of The Other Room

He loves me. He wouldn’t do this.

As that certainty started to quell the heartbreak seeing him in her arms had caused, I blew out a breath and did the one thing I’d never done before. I started back to face him instead of running away.

“Jo!” Aaron called, but I ignored him as I tried to push through the bodies standing between me and the conversation I needed to have with Matt. “Jo!” he called again, and I felt him grab my arm.

“Not now, Aaron!” I struggled free and started to hurry away.

He jogged to keep up. “Jo, seriously! Stop. You need to talk to Matt. He’s your roommate so maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

Aaron’s concerned tone spun me around to face him. “I’m going to talk to him right now.” I pushed my brows together. “Bu what do you mean talk some sense into him?”

“Good. Go talk to him, or better yet, go kick his ass. Did you know he was dating Nikki again?”

My already swirling thoughts refused to stop. “What?”

My heart ached as it began constructing the walls once again, pinning it in with the pressure that made it hard to breathe.

It’s real? The unfaithfulness I just saw with my own two eyes? Wait. If Aaron knows, then how the hell long has this been going on?

“Yeah, fucking Matt is dating Nikki again. And it’s just the shittiest thing ever. Seriously. You need to talk some sense into him. Jake will kill him if he finds out, and rightfully so. I’m pissed off myself. I guess you were right when you didn’t want to trust him again. Totally didn’t see that one coming.”

The tears stung as I blinked them back, the haze of betrayal causing my vision to blur.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“Just talk to him, Jo. Tell him that it doesn’t matter how dumbstruck in love with her he is, that shit needs to stop. Now. He’ll listen to you.”

My mouth opened but words refused to form on my tongue. Dating her? If Aaron knew about Nikki, then this wasn’t some random hook up I’d walked in on. Was it? But how? Why? My mind raced trying to make sense of the scene I’d just witnessed. And now... now I’d heard the truth straight from Aaron’s lips.

Had it been going on when he’d kissed me last night? Told me he loved me? Took me to bed? Had every second that I’d spent wrapped in his arms been a lie?

“I have to go,” I whispered, spinning away.

Lick my wounds.

Cry a river of tears.

Harden my heart and regroup.

My strides sped up until I was racing down the street in Sister Bay. All I wanted now was to go home. I wanted to throw myself on the bed and yank the covers over my head and cry. Something I hadn’t done in years.

But as I got in my car, I realized home wasn’t my sanctuary anymore. Home was where Matt lived. The bed I wanted to curl up in was the same one where we’d spent all night making love. No. Not love. Not anymore. Nothing about home felt safe now, and I hated him even more for taking that away from me. He’d taken away the safety of my own home when I’d let him move into the other room. A room I intended to toss his lying ass out of faster than he could blink.

I reached my Jeep and jumped inside, firing it up and slamming it into gear. The tires squealed as I skidded out onto the street, darting between cars puttering along as their drivers stared up at the goats on the roof of Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant.

“Move!” I screamed at them, desperate to get the hell out of here and away from Matt. And Nikki.

Ugh! The image of her in his arms slammed into my mind again.

When the traffic finally gave way, I tore down the street to my cabin. Gravel ground under my tires as I slammed to a stop in my driveway, and I left the Jeep running while I ran inside to grab a few things I needed so I could crash at my sister’s house.

The sight of the finished railing on the porch slowed me to a crawl. Matt had put so much time into our little cabin... my little cabin, and now I saw visions of him everywhere I looked. I could picture him sitting on the roof, shirt off, smiling down at me while he showed me his handiwork. I envisioned him securing the last of the wood for the railing, his proud grin deepening his dimples while he stood back to admire it. As I made my way up the steps and into my living room, the sadness drove deeper into my gut when I saw the finished driftwood coffee table in front of the new couch.

Its beauty stole the very breath from my lungs. And it reminded me of him.

As I looked around, my whole cabin reminded me of him. Even Petunia, as she rubbed up against my leg, and I remembered he’d finally won her over, just like he’d won me over.

And then he’d betrayed me.