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“I’m painfully aware of what I said, Tove. That—that wasn’t me. I was going through a thing.” She touches her lips, seems to be thinking about something. “I didn’t tell you this but a guy showed up here a few weeks ago looking for you.”
“A guy? Who?”
“I don’t know. I assumed it was someone you met.” She lifts her eyes, points them right at me. “You know, sometimes you’d go out at night and not answer your phone. I was forced to draw my own conclusions.”
Fear trickles through me. “I was working, and I always told you that. Who was the guy? What was his name?”
“Were you sleeping with him?” She averts the question, her face painted with pain.
“No. I wasn’t sleeping with anyone. Didn’t meet anyone either. Which is why I’m so confused.” I rub my face, frustration twisting me up.
“He didn’t give me a name. But he did accidentally drop a business card on the way to the elevator.”
“Do you have it?”
“Not with me. But I did save it. Oh! Wait …” She reaches in her back pocket and pulls out her phone. “I almost forgot. I took a picture of it to—well, it doesn’t matter.”
I walk around the bar as she taps at her screen, then turns the phone in my direction, letting me hold it and examine the picture up close.
“Can you send this to me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
My phone dings seconds later and I check to be sure I got it.
“So you really don’t know him?”
“No, Devin. I really don’t know him. This is …” I look at the picture again, zooming in on the logo to see if it’s familiar.
“Unsettling?” she finishes my thought, using the exact word I was thinking.
“Yes.”
She purses her lips. “I really thought he was someone you met.”
My arms fall in exasperation. “If I were the type of person to meet a guy and cheat on you—which I’m not—why the hell would I tell him where I live?”
“I just thought he looked you up or something. I don’t know.” She throws her hands up, equally frustrated as me.
“So why wouldn’t you just ask me? Some strange guy comes looking for me and you don’t say shit? Whether you think I’m cheating or not that’s messed up ashell, Devin.”
“I realize that now,” she sighs. “I just … I don’t know … maybe I wanted to believe you were cheating. If that makes any sense.”
“Oh, it makes sense. Because you could use that as a justification to cheat on me with Swain.”
Her throat bobs. “I guess I deserve that.”
My pulse is racing, not only because someone I don’t know was looking for me but also because my own girlfriend at the time would rather leave me in the dark and put me in danger, and all to justify her own betrayal.
“What day was he here? Do you at least remember that?”
“It was the night you told me you were going to a birthday party for someone at work.”
“So, the night I went to a birthday party.” I like the implication that I just said I was going, not that I went. Though, outside of my anger right now, I do understand her doubts. There is a lot she doesn’t know about how I spend my time.
Devin had wanted to go to that party with me, but I told her that Daddy didn’t want any outside people there because the birthday girl had just recovered from plastic surgery and her face was still so taut, she was feeling incredibly self-conscious. That was a lie. I didn’t want her to go because I only stayed for five minutes. The rest of the time I was trailing Peter Snowden, familiarizing myself with his routine.
“I remember that night very well.”
