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Duke leaps up like I’m a rattle snake he just found in his bed. Like I’m venomous, and he’s appalled that he ever got so close. “We’re not—this isn’t—”
And he can tuck himself away all he wants, can yank the sheets over my body like that, like I’m something shameful to hide, but there’s no denying what his daughter walked in on. “This is nothing,” he tells her, pleading with his eyes for her to believe him.
How can she not? After all, Duke won’t even look at me.Isure believe him.
As I sit up, curling my knees to my chest, I’ve never felt this small and miserable. My best friend backs up, shaking her head, one hand still clapped over her eyes.
“Jesus fucking Christ. You two.” Meg curses her way back along the hallway, bouncing off the walls with a series of thumps, like her eyes are still covered even out there. She curses all the way to the ground floor, then throws the front door open.
Duke and I both flinch as it slams shut behind her.
Silence.
I never knew silence could be soloud.
One minute later, my legs shake as I swing them off the bed. “I shouldn’t have come in here. I’m sorry.”
Duke scrubs a hand down his face, not saying a word, and Meg is long gone but he still won’t look at me. Not even a goodbye glance.
I scurry out of there, sleep shirt swishing, too humiliated to snatch up my panties and put them on.
He can keep them. Or throw them out, more likely.
Maybe set them on fire while cursing my name.
Eight
Duke
Thank god for a lunch gig, that’s all I can say. After stumbling out of the house after breakfast, too numb to even register getting dressed or downing coffee, four hours of playing in a jazz club downtown is exactly what I need.
Every stroke of my fingers across the keys brings me a little more back to myself. Every minute at that piano centers me, makes things clearer again. Puts this morning’s disaster in perspective.
And it was bad. Okay, I get that. I do. Meg should never have seen me like that, least of all with her best friend.
But we’re all adults, and maybe she should learn to knock before barging into a bedroom. Maybe it’s not so cut and dried.
Maybe this isn’t so world-ending as it felt at dawn.
The way Clementine scrambled out of my bedroom, her face drawn and pale…
What did I say to her? I must have spoken to her, right? Wish I could remember the chain of events more clearly, but it all happened so fast. We need live action replay, like on the sports channel.
Glasses clink all around, and though it’s been non-smoking for years, this club still smells faintly of cigar smoke. The lunchtime crowd is relaxed, unhurried. Basking in the warm sunshine as it slants through stained glass windows, listening to the piano and chatting about their lives as they tease cocktail sticks out of sandwiches.
I play on, my chest looser by the minute.
Halfway through I go on break, sipping on a glass of lime water in one of the cushioned back booths while an old record keeps the crowd entertained. Tucked away from prying eyes, I check my phone for texts from either Meg or Clementine. My belly churns with dread as I nudge the screen to life—then I sink back, half relieved, half disappointed.
Nothing. Or almost nothing.
At 1pm from Meg:Scared the gator off. You’re next, you old goat
Not a peep from Clementine.
She’s okay, right? Maybe shaken up by this morning, but okay? She’s got Meg, after all, and my daughter wouldn’t know a grudge if it bit her on the ass. Plus judging by her text, Meg clearly agrees with me on this: everything that happened with Clementine is my fault. Not hers.
I’m the one who took her to that dinner.
