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“No,” he says forcefully. “I haven’t touched anyone since Layla besides you. Except, I think I smacked Maya’s ass or something when she first showed up, but I can’t remember.”
But he definitely slept with that girl at some point, I know it. “You joined the clubafteryou got with Layla. You cheated on her?”
He shakes his head, stepping closer to me. “We were separated.”
Rage flares up the back of my throat like fire. He’s fucking lying to me. “Bullshit, Knox! You and Layla never broke up. She would’ve told me.”
“Well, she didn’t, and I didn’t. We didn’t tell anyone.”
My heart pounds in my chest as I stare at him. He’s not lying. I know when he’s lying, and he’s not. Theywereseparated. “When?”
He turns away from me and lodges a chair under the door so no one can come out. “It was the second time we broke up. We were both so fucking tired of everything going on. She wasn’t getting pregnant and none of the doctors wouldn’t see us until we’d purposefully tried for over a year. We were fighting all the time and the only time she let me touch her was if there was a smiley face on a fucking ovulation test. I wanted her back the way she was, and she just wasn’t going to be that way. So, I moved back into the clubhouse. I hadn’t been back to the house since.”
Nothing makes sense. “You… you told me…” I’m trying to piece together all the confusing puzzle pieces but I have too many. I’ve got too many puzzles mixed together and I don’t know what kind of picture I'm supposed to make. “When?”
“Six months before she died. She still called me every time one of those fucking smiley faces popped up. She still wanted my babies even if she didn’t want me.”
Pain assaults every part of me. I’m no longer angry. I’m hurt and confused. “That woman just said you fucked her six years ago. Did you do that too?”
Knox scrubs his hands down his face. “She left me when the house was almost finished. She didn’t want to live in the clubhouse anymore. She didn’t want to miss your parents anymore. She wanted her old life back, the way it was before she met me. That’s why it took so long to get the house finished. I tore it up, and I didn’t want to live in it any more. So I came to the clubhouse to get fucked up-”
I cut him off, not wanting to hear about how he fucked that woman. “And then what happened? How did you end up back with Layla?”
“I felt bad and had the house finished. I told her she could buy it from me and live in it without me. We met up so I could give her the keys, and… she apologized. She said she couldn’t do it without me and she-”
I stare up at the sky with my hands on my hips, sniffling and shivering. This dress is too cold for this weather, and I’m starting to see that the Knox and Layla I’ve known for the past eleven years wasn’t the actual Knox and Layla. “You two were separated for six months before she died?”
“Yes. I dragged my feet on filing for a divorce. She told me to do it when I was ready. I held out hope that things would change. I thought if she got pregnant she would take me back and we could be happy again.”
“But it was two months before she died that she told me if I ever wanted to get away from David to come to you. She said you would help me. Why the fuck would she tell me to come to you if she didn’t want you around?”
Knox throws his hands up in the air. The pain on his face mirrors the one I feel in my body. “I have no idea, Nell. Maybe because I handle everything. That’s how she knew me.”
“Knox, I legitimately always believed that your relationship with Layla was perfect-”
“No one’s perfect, Nell. I’m not, she wasn’t. Things are never perfect. Layla was just really good at pretending that way.”
My heart aches so deeply and I can’t catch my breath. “How could I not know? How did I not notice?”
“Nellie, you were dealing with your own shit-”
“And I missed that my sister washeartbroken! I missed that you were completely fucking absent from her life and from the house. I wasn’t paying any attention!”
Knox intercepts my panic by catching me, again, and holding me against him. “We all fuck up. We all have to learn to get through it. Let me help you.”
“I don’t know how. This is so much information and I have to absorb it all. I need time.”
“Sit with me. Ask me questions. I’ll answer.”
I look up at Tree to figure him out. He doesn’t normally act like this. He’s trying to open up. “Did the club know?”
He loosens his grip and steps closer to the chairs at the back, encouraging me to go with him. “Nobody asked. They didn’t want to know. I was on the road a lot. Maybe they didn’t notice.”
I sit next to him on the deck and watch the clouds clear the moon. “Did she date anyone else?”
“She didn’t tell me stuff like that and I didn't ask. That was somethingIdidn’t want to know.”
I put my elbows on my knees and rub my temples. “You’re breaking my heart, Knox. You don’t even know if she was seeing someone else? She cut you out that much? Knox, I can’t take this. Tell me you’re joking. Tell me she was perfect and you were perfect and everything that ever happened between the two of you was perfect because I’ve spent my entire life pining after the life she had and you’re telling me I’ve believed in a lie for half my life. So, please… tell me this is all bullshit.”
