Page 64 of Everything But Mine

“I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” Her voice rises, raw and uneven. “You think you’re so righteous, walking around with your little support system and your baby and your smug little face⁠—”

Her hands drop, but her body doesn’t. She steps into my space with her taller frame, crowding me while she looks down at me with eyes glistening, delicate red veins blooming against white.

“I love him,” she spits. “You think I wanted it to happen like this? For him to finally see me while he was with someone else? I thought he wasn’t sleeping with you anymore!”

“Cassie—”

Her lip curls. “You weren’t there. You had one foot out the door the whole time. Left your shit in boxes. Meanwhile, you went and what? Hung out with Eric?”

I can’t keep the stress off my expression when she says his name. I don’t want his name on her lips or Daray’s. I want him wrapped away, tucked safely in a blanket—and maybe between my arms.

Cassie clocks my reaction instantly and smiles, bitter and thin. “It was so easy for us to fuck around on you. And now you’re acting like Eric wasn’t your own fuckboy? There’s no way you’re that close with someone, and you’re not fucking. Everyone thinks so. Even now, you’re parading him around. It just feeds Daray’s story. Nobody will buy that he just happened to be there when Daray screwed you over. He made sure everyone knew you started it all.”

This is who Cassie is—insecure. Daray is, too, if this is what he was carrying about how close I was with Eric. And Cassie now is caught up in loving someone who exploits the worst of her just to keep her under his thumb. I should know. But I’m not under anyone’s thumb. And Cassie’s larger belly fucking proves I didn’t do anything wrong.

I square up, and even if she’s more than a half-head taller than me. “I don’t need anyone’s approval, and I’m not afraid of gossip. But if I were? Look down, Cassie. Your stomach speaks to my truth more than it ever will to Daray’s.” I step away from her. “Suit yourself. Keep him, love him, whatever. I hope he is everything to you that he refused to be for me. Good fucking luck.” I breathe and open the door. “As for telling Daray?” I look over my shoulder. “Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. But you and that child bear no weight in my decision. Because I don’t need Daray. I’m not alone.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ERIC

It’s just me and Val at the table now. The Bennetts, Martina, and Andrzej are now at the other table mingling with the other half of our group. It’d be best for me to go too, but I can’t tear my eyes off Amanda and Diego. They’re dancing with no air between them, bodies moving as if music and rhythm could fix anything. There’s nothing flirtatious in it, and still, the ease between them makes the muscles in my back tighten with tension.

“Did he just smack her ass?” Val’s voice cuts through.

I chuckle. “He sure did.”

“Is this… a thing for them?” she asks, her gaze zeroed in on like she’s seeing a side of their friendship she didn’t realize existed.

“You should see them do karaoke sometime,” I snicker. “We’re barely scratching the surface.”

She leans over the table closer to me, eyes going wide as if she can picture this new form of torture I’ve invented. For a second, the image tugs at my chest. The four of us are a tight-knit group. Val’s my grumpy ally, so I get to sing and dance less.

“Does it bother you?” she asks, nodding toward Amanda and Diego.

I shrug. She’s in shrink mode. All Val is missing is the velvet armchair.

“Does it bother you?” I volley back, but she doesn’t answer. Just does the thing where she waits.

I exhale and push the wine glass away—two is my self-imposed max. “Not in the way you’d think,” I admit. “It’s not jealousy. Not really. I’m… She used to feel at ease like that with me. Now, every time we touch, I’m on pins and needles, bracing for her to scoot away.” I tap my index finger on the tablecloth. “But it’s my own fault.”

She presses her lips into a thin line and tilts her head. “We’ll get into that at my office,” Val adds. Then, she shifts her chair closer, lowers her voice, and, gazing into the white tablecloth, continues. “I know what you mean though.”

Ever since I started taking her up on the therapy stuff, sitting on her mustard couch and telling her about my sad, pathetic childhood, the hostility between us has softened. There’s even a certain respect in the way she looks at me now that wasn’t there before. Almost as if she takes me for someone who’s genuinely trying to work on himself.

Her eyes are on Diego and Amanda again, zoned on his hand on her back. “All that touchiness is… alienating to me.” She glances back at me. “It makes me wonder why he asked me here.”

We sit in the vulnerability we’ve shared. It’s weird and comforting. When we’re in her office, it’s all about me and my failures, but out of it… Val and I are almost friends.

A hand lands heavily on my shoulder, then the chair next to me scrapes the floor as it’s pulled out. I don’t have to look his way. Daray.

His bulkiness is always striking to me, as if his arms and chest are trying to make up for some deficit in character. He’s also showing it off. His button-down is too tight across the shoulders. His shirt is yellow, and it clashes with his sandy hair, buzzed short on the sides and gelled back just enough to pretend he didn’t spend thirty minutes on it. I’ve wished my hair stayed in place like his more than once.

When he flashes a grin, I sit straighter, refusing to give him an inch. And when his arm slings over my shoulder, I want to push him off, because his touch makes me feel complicit in his lies. His head tilts to where Amanda and Diego dance, his lips curling out. To him, it’s provocative, insulting.

“I see you can’t get her to stop doing that stupid shit, either.”