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Rachel laughed.
“Doesn’t sound like me?” she echoed, voice leaping an octave or two and drawing more than couple of gazes who were eager for some entertainment. “You don’t know me.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Before I could realise how stupid they were. How ridiculous they were. How dangerous they were.
“I know you,” I growled, “I fucking know you.”
Rachel stared in shock at me. I cleared my throat and turned away, scratching at the back of my neck in embarrassment.
I heard Rachel shout at everyone who was watching, “Mind your own fucking business, you fucking loser shitheads!”
Then she said to me, smoothing her hands down her legs, “I’m different now. Quieter. Softer. Gentler… Sweeter.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, because surely she couldn’t fail to see the irony given what she’d just hollered out at strangers.
Rachel rolled her eyes and huffed. “It’s you.”
I raised my eyebrows. Seriously? I was the bad influence?
“I mean, it’s the alcohol.” Her eyes darted toward mine. “I—I’m not used to whiskey anymore.”
“So I don’t fit into this squeaky clean little image you need for this—for this big new role of yours.”
Rachel hesitated. “Our marriage doesn’t fit.”
“Us together doesn’t fit,” I said bitterly.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
The way she was looking at me. All fire. All rage and fury. All barely held back violence. I wanted to tell her that we fit together like whiskey and cold nights, fog and mornings in bed, sex and more fucking sex. I wanted to tell her that she was wrong. I wanted to grab her face and kiss her and shake her and curse her out and send her away forever. Because she knew where I was. And she didn’t come for me. She chose not to come for me.
“You need me then,” I said.
“I most certainly do not,” Rachel spluttered, cheeks flushing. “Not anymore. Not ever actually. I never needed you. Not once. Not ever. I—I do not need you. No. No. Nope. You know what? Fuck you, Mason. Fuck you.”
Rachel was breathing heavily.
I let her steam for a minute or two before tapping my toe against her purse. The file folder with the divorce papers was sticking out of it.
She noticed it. “Oh. Well, yeah. I mean…if that’s what you mean.”
I drummed my fingertips against my knees and grinned.
“Now correct me if I’m wrong, Rachel,” I said. “But you need me. Did you hear me over the saxophone? You need me.”
Rachel fumed. But she fumed in silence.
“And if you’re getting something out of this, this needing of me, then I think it’s only fair that I get something in return. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Rachel laughed and said, “What could you possibly want from me?”
Everything, I wanted to scream. Fucking everything. Your heart, your soul, your warmth in my bed, your smiles over breakfast every fucking morning until forever. Wasn’t that what we wanted? Wasn’t that what we’d always wanted?
Instead I shrugged casually and smiled charmingly. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure we can figure something out. So that these big new important people who are giving you this big new important role don’t find out who you really are. I’m sorry—who you used to be. Yeah, I think we can figure something out, babe. Don’t you?”
Rachel narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me.
“You know,” she said warily, “if I didn’t know any better and maybe if I weren’t so goddamn drunk right now, I’d almost say that this is beginning to sound like blackmail.”
