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They had no idea what it was like.
The man reached the edge of the pool, braced his palms on the edge, and levered himself up, twisting around at the last second to sit beside her. Water dripped off his legs and pooled on the concrete, a puddle inching its way toward her thigh. Warm when it reached her. Warm as a touch.
She thought that when she was done with this man, she’d go to the salon and see if they had an opening.
She would sit down in a chair, and she would tell the stylist to cut off her hair.
CHAPTER FOUR
By the time Tony got home from work, it was after ten.
He pushed the door open quietly and toed off his boots, which he’d unlaced in the garage. He hung his work jacket on the hook and exhaled, rubbing flattened fingers up and down over his forehead, trying to ease the tension from his face.
In the kitchen, he opened the fridge, looking for something to eat.
“Top shelf,” a voice said, and he jumped and hit his head on the corner of the freezer door.
“Fucking hell.” He managed not to shout it. The boys were asleep, and he had years of practice in not waking them up.
His mother-in-law sat at the table, illuminated by nothing but moonlight, and who the fuck did that?
Tony touched the tender spot above his ear, then brought his fingers in front of his eyes. No blood. It hurt, though, and he couldn’t help feeling like she’d done it on purpose. Mama eagle, swooping out of the sky to draw first blood.
“Are you having an affair?” she asked.
“What? No. Jesus. I was at work.”
“You work until ten?”
“I work until eight and then haul ass all the way back here from Chillicothe, yeah.” Tony flipped on the light over the stove.
“Why are you doing a job in Chillicothe?”
“Because that’s where there is a job. Why are you sneaking around my house and accusing me of cheating on my wife?”
“Somebody has to. There’s lasagna on the top shelf.”
“Somebody has to what?” Tony took the pan out and slid it onto the countertop. It made a slightly louder bang than it needed to.
He was angrier than he needed to be.
Or, no. He was the right amount of angry. His mother-in-law had accused him of cheating on Amber. He was allowed to feel like yelling, to bang the lasagna pan around. He just wasn’t allowed to blow up.
It had been one of those days when he’d spent hours not blowing up.
“Somebody has to tell you when you’re being stupid. If your mother were still alive, she would do it, but she’s not, so it falls to me.”
The nerve of this woman. Forever sticking her nose in other people’s business. Tony peeled the foil off the lasagna, got out a fork, and stabbed a bite right out of the pan.
“It’s cold,” she said.
“I know that.”
When he put it in his mouth, she pulled the lasagna pan across the island to her and found a spatula. She measured out a serving, then looked at it and cut and added another sliver before putting the plate in the microwave and setting the timer.
As if he couldn’t microwave his own lasagna if he wanted to, or manage his own life. He’d just spent seventeen hours managing other people’s shit.
He did that, day in and day out, every single day—handled his employees, hassled the subs to do what they said they’d do when they said they’d do it, massaged the owners’ egos, coaxed information out of incompetent architects who’d already moved on to the next thing.
