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“You’re a church. How can you have competitors?”
This time it’s Mark who hits me.
“And this guy, Elliot Walls…” He holds up another photo. “You slept with him too.”
“Jesus.” Adam rubs his jaw.
“Do you know who Elliot is?”
I shake my head.
“He’s the finance manager at All Saints.”
I roll my shoulders. It was cramped in that trunk. “Okay?”
“What I think Mark is trying to say,” Adam tells me. “Is that you’ve fucked all the competition.”
Beth stands over me. I brace myself for what I know is coming. Out of everyone, girls always fight the dirtiest. “And what I want to know is…why?”
“It’s not personal.” I wait for her to hit me again. It’s coming. I can see it on her face. Now doesn’t seem like the time to bring up the fact I can’t feel any pain. “They’re philanthropists. They donate to my parents charity.”
“How convenient,” Mark says.
“Really, more of a coincidence,” I say.
“I have to run,” Adam says. This gets everyone’s attention. Especially mine. He nods at his phone. “The wife is expecting me home for dinner.”
“That’s fine,” Beth replies, dismissing him. Then to everyone but me she says, “Tom will be here soon. We’ll let him handle
the traitor.”
“I’m not a traitor,” I say. “I just really like sex.”
“Shut up,” they all say.
I watch Adam leave. He doesn’t even say goodbye. Fair weather friends. They’ll get you every time. I should have known better. I thought he might help me. I thought my charm would work on him. Clearly, it didn’t. I feel like something very bad is going to happen.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tom
To go or not to go, that is the question. I could just as easily skip town. Take the money and run. Keep it simple. I’m on the fence about it, to be sure. What would it take to drive in the other direction and not look back? What does it take for a person to betray those they’re supposed to love most? Do I have it in me?
People like to think it’s the spilt-second decisions that make the difference, do or don’t, walk away or stay, and sometimes it is. More often than not, it isn’t. Usually, there’s momentum behind that decision, a whole set of forces, seen or unseen, leading up to the act. It’s important to understand those forces. It’s important to understand what momentum can do. You let things build, brush aside your feelings, delay the conversation, ignore the slight gnaw in your gut. Until one day, it happens. You’re sucker-punched. Jab. Uppercut. Right hook.
How could I have missed the signs, you’ll ask yourself.
You didn’t miss them. You just weren’t looking hard enough.
June insisted we take the family to Cabo San Lucas one summer. It was against my better judgment to travel to a country where the odds of kidnapping are quite high. But June insisted, so I took a class on counterterrorism and negotiation tactics. Just in case. I’d hoped not to have to put them to good use, but as they say, every dog has his day.
First, I can tell you this. In any negotiation, there’s always leverage. Negotiation is never a linear formula: add A to B to get C. Everyone has blind spots. Mark is no different. He’s irrational, yes, but like anyone, he has hidden needs, a universe of variables that can be leveraged to change his ideas and expectations.
Now that he has something of mine in his possession, the goal is to shape his reality so it conforms to what I ultimately want to give him, not what he initially thinks he deserves.
And if this doesn’t work, I can always throw a bit of jujitsu in the mix.
“I told you,” Mark warned. “I gave you time. I was patient. You should have moved on your first target by this point.”
