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“Riley, I don’t want to talk about this.” My eye aches as I say the words, pain spreading from the site into my forehead, a sharp stabbing sensation cropping up behind my temple.
“Of course, you don’t. Boyd Kelly prefers to avoid the spectrum of emotion, right?”
“Are you quoting The Proposal to me right now?”
Despite the palpable tension flowing between us, she laughs. “Paraphrasing, and I’m impressed you got the reference.”
“I’m not a monster.”
“Right.” Her laughter dies off, an abrupt shift I’m having a hard time keeping up with. A wave of nausea racks through me, and I grip my knee as she sighs into the speaker. “Anyway, are you—?”
“I need to go,” I say quickly, cutting her off and ending the call just as bile burns the length of my esophagus; I barely make it to the sink in time, spewing vomit as soon as my mouth hovers over the porcelain bowl. Acid sets fire to my throat, dragging its nails through the sensitive flesh and making me dizzy as my lunch empties from my body.
Coughing on the last dry heave, I wipe my mouth and rifle beneath the sink, finding a bottle of Listerine at the back and swishing it around, the throbbing in my head intensifying with the movement.
Spitting out the wash, I exit the bathroom, stuffing my phone in my pocket and closing the door slowly, unsure if anyone’s returned since I holed up in Fiona’s room and not particularly wanting to run into them if they have.
My hand grips the doorknob of Fiona’s bedroom when I smell it—the familiar scent of extremely cheap perfume. The kind that’s been imprinted into my nostrils from my childhood. I only know one other person who wears it.
Turning my head, I meet Chelsea’s wide eyes as she adjusts her blonde ponytail, pulling down the hem of her velvet dress. The hall light doesn’t offer a ton of visibility, but I’d recognize that smell anywhere.
Craig rounds the corner, slipping his arm around Chelsea’s waist and bending to say something in her ear; she elbows him, jerking her chin in my direction, and he stills, slowly straightening to look at me.
For a moment, pure disbelief ebbs between us; I’d already known, of course, that he was fucking her, but a pang of guilt and disgust worms its way into my gut at the realization that he’s doing it under his roof, where his wife lives.
“Boyd?” he stammers quietly, his eyes darting to where my hand is frozen on his daughter’s bedroom door. “What the hell is going on?”
The spike in volume throws me at first, because Craig Ivers isn’t the kind of guy who does a lot of yelling. He’s always annoyingly unruffled, able to switch from hardened criminal to asshole CEO to doting husband in a matter of minutes.
Guess this is the asshole.
“You want to answer that first?” I challenge, quirking an eyebrow.
“Excuse me?”
I nod at Chelsea, who shrinks at his side, trying to step back behind his body. “Just saying. Last time I checked, that wasn’t your wife.”
He sputters, crossing his arms over his chest. “What I’m doing, and who I’m doing it with, is none of your concern, boy. What the fuck you’re doing in my daughter’s room well-past midnight in my house, however, certainly is.”
“All due respect, sir,” I say, twisting the knob and pushing the door open. “I’m not sure you have the upper hand here, unless you want to explain to Fiona what you’re doing with a girl she could have gone to high school with while her mother is, presumably, asleep down the hall.”
“Uh, I’m actually twenty-five,” Chelsea says, earning a dirty look from Craig. She mimes zipping her lips, stepping backward.
Craig stares at me for a long time. I see his jaw working, flexing as he clenches and unclenches his teeth before finally letting out a low exhale. Contemplating how loud a physical fight would be, or whether he genuinely cares what I do with his daughter, I can’t be sure.
Part of me doesn’t want that knowledge; doesn’t want to know which option weighs more.
Without another word, he grabs Chelsea’s hand and pulls her toward the stairs, dragging her behind him. She trips over her heels, almost toppling down over him, but catches herself at the last second, tossing me a strained glance over her shoulder.
It almost looks like regret, though the fact that I hear a door deeper in the house slam minutes later says she must not feel that bad. Probably just that she got caught.
Not my secret to tell.
My hand cramps as my hold on the doorknob tightens, and pain radiates through my temple, down my neck, settling in my shoulders where all my troubles seem to live. They must have some kind of timeshare.
I should leave, especially now that I’ve been caught in a taboo situation myself. But that goddamn magnetic force pulls me back in, something I don’t understand and still somehow feel powerless against.
It’s elemental, completely carnal, the universe itself imploring me to continue whatever the fuck this is with this woman.
