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Cordelia cheating on me had stung.
It had disillusioned me, it had been embarrassing, and it had wounded my pride. But it had never hurt quite like this. The betrayal had been one of trust, and not of the heart, because I’d never truly given her mine.
I thought I had. But I realize now, in more ways than one, that I’d confused an errant ray of sunshine for the whole sun.
Sophia won’t stop shaking. It’s half sobbing, and half panic attack, and her hands at my neck are holding on tightly.
“Here,” I murmur, and shift us to the chair in the corner. She sits down on my lap. “We don’t have to go out there again.” I run my hand over her back, listen to the muffled sounds of her sadness. She’d cried that morning, too, after we’d spent the night together for the first time.
Someone pulls at the restroom door.
“Occupied!” I bark.
The pulling stops. The crying doesn’t, but it turns softer, quieter. And all the tears are for Percy.
“Our dinner date…” she whispers.
“Fuck the dinner,” I say. “I’ll take you back home and we can order take-out. Or we cancel the evening entirely, if you’d rather be alone,” I say, even if the idea of leaving her on her own in this state feels impossible.
“Do you think they’re still out there?”
“We’ll leave out the back,” I say.
“We have to pay our check…”
“I’ll handle all of it.”
Her hands slide down the front of my chest. She leans back, cheeks flushed, and eyes glazed with moisture. But she’s not sobbing anymore.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I don’t know why that affected me so much.”
I smile. It’s not a happy one. “Don’t you?”
“I think I’m ready to leave. If we can.”
“We can. Let me leave the restrooms first, all right? I’ll pay the drinks and make sure we can use the back exit.”
“Okay,” she murmurs, and runs her her palms over her cheeks, wiping away the tears. “Thanks.”
The waiter doesn’t miss a beat when I hand her a hundred-dollar bill for our two glasses of wine. “Change of plans,” I tell her. “We’ll be using the delivery exit.”
She only nods. Good ole Salt, I think, and the fancy clientele with their odd requests. This isn’t the weirdest one she’s had today, I’m sure of it.
Sophia and I walk through a kitchen busy with activity. One or two chefs shoot us curious looks, but the seasoned pros don’t look up from their work. Yeah, this happens all the time.
We walk for a solid block before either of us speaks.
“Wow,” she murmurs. Her voice is still a bit hoarse. “I don’t even know what to say about that.”
“Want to walk?” I ask. “The hotel is close by.”
“Walking is nice, actually, but… I think I need to go home. I have that pitch tomorrow, you know.”
“Right, of course.”
The air between us feels stiff with anguish. I’d known she wasn’t ready to date anyone. That her heart still ached over her divorce, that she was career-focused, that we’d both used one another as mutually beneficial pawns to prove a point.
And yet.
