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She’d managed a drunken confession without the alcohol. Dr. Merino slunk into the bar without a parting phrase and she hoped that the ringing wrath of his hangover the following morning would be loud enough to drown out the faint echo of her words.
The chatter of a hundred conversations and stench of hops and greasy food assaulting Kenna’s senses ushered in a sense of familiarity and made it easier to forget that, moments earlier, her mentor’s tongue had coasted along her neck.
Any attempt to ignore what transpired outside became impossible as she rejoined her trivia teammates. A table full of people who knew precisely who she and the man at the bar were to one another.
Will wasted no time chiding her. “Where were you? You missed the first question of the half. And what was the category, you may ask? Religion. Right in your wheelhouse.”
Was it in her wheelhouse? She had not attended Mass since Christmas Eve. Her determination to decode Dr. Merino had drawn her away from the light and into an inferno.
An inferno from which she was still reeling, his hot breath and wanting lips blistering her skin like hellfire.
“Earth to Kenna.” Will leaned over the table, waving a hand in front of her face. “Where were you? You were gone for like, what, 20 minutes? You can’t keep up with the time, suddenly, or?”
Rebecca and Brandi eyed the far end of the bar, and dread constricted Kenna from head to toe as she trailed their line of sight, where Dr. Merino was reclaiming his seat.
“Oh, gross,” Rebecca said.
Though she did not speak, Brandi fixed Kenna with a hostile gaze and she knew if they were alone, she’d have no shortage of things to say.
She could only imagine what Brandi must have been thinking, that Kenna was playing both sides. It spelled betrayal.
“What?” Will asked.
“She was off sucking face with Dr. Strangelove during halftime, that’s what.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kenna said.
“You have a sick mind, Rebecca.” Will scrunched up his face. “And no proof.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to go on a second date with me?” Liam demanded coolly. “Because you have the hots for the school shrink? This is bullshit.”
“I didn’t go on a second date with you because you tried to put your hand up my skirt.”
Their table was a chorus of ‘oohs’ and expletives.
Liam muttered, “That’s an exaggeration.”
But no one cared about his weak defense. Like buzzards, they had circled back to their prey.
“Are you sleeping with Dr. M?” Brandi snapped.
In her eyes, Kenna saw Erin. The day at the diner. How pained she had been to recount her affair with Dr. Merino and further by the revelation of her miscarriage. She stared dead at Brandi and let her imagination wander. Had the pregnancy carried to term, that child would be alive. She would be an aunt. A part of his family.
A reality worlds apart from the one they occupied.
“There’s nothing going on between Dr. Merino and myself. Our relationship is strictly professional. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving.”
Ears ringing, she found herself on her feet, fleeing the table of her friends and bolting to the main entrance.
“Real classy, Kenna,” Liam yelled as she went.
Her chest hitched as her phone rang within her bag. Kenna stopped short of the exit and braced an arm with a shaking hand. Alex. She never called.
“Alex?”
“Hey, I know you’re out, but I was just online and—” The speaker crackled as she exhaled. “God, you won’t believe this. It’s Reid. He’s dead.”
The heated scene between The Barenaked Philosophers had caused quite a stir among the bar’s patrons. The joint didn’t have a reputation for drama and even though the teammates’ theatrics were juvenile, it garnered interest.
