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CHAPTER 33

The week that followed dragged on, a haze of commuting, work, and tense, angry silence at home. The weekend had finally arrived, and it was Rafe’s last night before leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow. I’d decided to be upfront with Calder, so I let him know I was going out with Rafe this evening. Despite my vow to stay with Calder until Rafe left, Rafe and I had texted back and forth this week, and I couldn’t let him leave without seeing him one last time.

Calder hadn’t said much—about that or anything else. There was no clarity in our relationship, even as we’d continued to live together for the past week. We weren’t together anymore, but we weren’t apart, either. The one thing I knew? I was done lying to him.

Calder stood at the bathroom door, watching me get ready to go out. It was awkward as fuck, but I continued putting on my makeup as if this was a totally normal thing and not the most messed-up situation imaginable. I was certain he was doing it to make me nervous. It was working.

Then he shifted on his feet, catching my attention. “I fucked someone in London.”

I ended up with a crooked, diagonal line of eyeliner across the side of my face. My hand trembled as I put the pencil down and swallowed, soaking in the enormity of that admission.

I leaned against the sink and looked down into the drain, where my life had gone, as of late. For a moment, I wasn’t the Talia who had betrayed Calder with his best friend. I was simply Talia, Calder’s girlfriend—the me who’d cherished this man, who knew she could trust him, the me who was absolutely certain he would never cheat. While I had no right to expect faithfulness from him anymore, this stung.

“Who was she?” I managed to ask, feeling like my legs might collapse.

“Does it matter?” He scoffed.

“It does to me,” I said, looking at my sad reflection in the mirror.

“It doesn’t make it any better if she was someone I knew versus someone I met in a bar.”

“I still wanna know,” I said, cleaning the side of my eye with a makeup wipe.

“She was someone Niles introduced me to. She does PR for one of his clients. We were all out to dinner one night. After everyone else left, the two of us stayed.” He paused.

“What then?” I swallowed.

“I told her everything about you and Rafe. I told her my worries about the job, too. I hadn’t known yet that I didn’t get it. She was easy to talk to and really beautiful.”

Of course she was.

“She asked me if I wanted to go back to her hotel room, and I said yes. And then…” He hesitated. “We fucked.”

I cringed. Did he have to use that term again? He could’ve said “slept with.” But would that have made it any easier? Likely not. “What’s her name?”

Calder hesitated. “Alicia.”

Taking a deep breath, I tried my best not to freak out. That was all I wanted to know. Any further details would only make me feel worse. “Thank you for telling me,” I said. “I guess I’m a little confused, though.”

“Confused about what?” He tilted his head.

“Before you left, you’d indicated that you wanted to work on things with me. Yet you slept with someone else.”

His eyes darkened. “And you indicated that you wouldn’t fuck Rafe again, but you did. And don’t even fucking try to deny it, Talia. I’m not stupid—at least not anymore. I could tell from the look on your face on our calls.”

I inhaled sharply as heat traveled from the back of my neck to my cheeks. “So basically, you didn’t trust me… And you figured you’d be proactive and fuck someone else to get back at me?”

Calder’s ears turned red. “Believe it or not, Talia, not everything is about you,” he yelled. “I needed something for me. I slept with her because I needed to feel desired and not like shit for one goddamn night.”

I fought back tears. How had I not thought about it that way? I had no right to say a damn thing about this. I wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry for making you feel unwanted. And I’m sorry if it seems like I’m criticizing your decision, which was completely understandable under the circumstances.”

He looked down at his feet a moment. “I considered not telling you, because believe it or not, there’s still a part of me that doesn’t want to hurt you. I don’t know where things stand with us anymore, but I know there’s zero hope if we’re not completely honest with each other from here on out.” He paused. “You’re going out tonight with the man you cheated with, but you wanna know the messed-up part?”

“What?” I whispered.

“I still want you, Talia. I still love you so much, and I just want to wake up from this goddamn nightmare.”

I turned to him, but he disappeared down the hall before I could say anything else.