Page 20 of Chasing the Other Woman

He blames you, Sam.

He thinks you should have stayed at home.

He’ll never forgive you.

I wasn’t supposed to go out with them that day. As much as I wanted to blame pregnancy hormones, I knew the risks of getting on the road at four months.

The storms had looked almost benign. Another thing I tried to chalk up to hormones, because usually I would’ve felt that tell-tale twitch in my gut warning me that the sky was lying.

“I don’t know, Sam,” he’d said, and looked down at my belly. I’d just started to pop a little. “I know it looks like a small one, and I know you want to go, but maybe sit this one out? Not that I don’t want you there…”

And what had he said last night?

I don’t want you in that truck with me.

“That Dumas storm was a crazy one, wasn’t it?” I say to Tom. Anything to get out of the hell loop I’m stuck inside.

Tom watches me. Damn. Caught. He blinks, no doubt cataloging whatever he just noticed for later.

“Velocity couplet on this one is messy. Not tight enough,” he says, moving past the awkwardness.

“Good eye, Tom.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I reach for it and look down.

Brooks:

Can I call you?

I put the phone away and look back to Tom. His eyes travel from my phone to my face, all too knowing.

He picks up the tray from the table I’ve neglected. “I’ll take these to the kitchen and then get upstairs. Mom doesn’t like it when I stay down here too long.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

The phone buzzes again.

Brooks:

I just need to talk to you.

Not I love you. Not I’m sorry.

I wipe down the table until it shines.

By the time midnight rolls around, my feet hurt enough to make me almost forget my phone. Almost.

The phone has stopped buzzing. That should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. It just gets my curiosity up.

Which is bad news for my mental health.

The first thing I do is pull up the socials because why not go straight for the hurt?

Right at the top is a tagged clip from one of the fan accounts.

It’s a picture of Brooks’s damaged truck. It sits angled near the shoulder, one side crumpled from debris. Beyond it, winter wheat spreads out like a sea of green, breaking the photo up into thirds.

But the color isn’t what catches my eye.