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“Get out. Get out!”
I nod and do as she asks, hearing her sobs as I close the door behind me.
Fuck.
I start driving, to where I don’t know, I just drive until daylight falls to early darkness.
YVETTE OPENS THE door as soon as I get out of the car outside her and Teddy’s white Notting Hill terrace. She smiles as I walk the path to the house, but it’s a smile of pity that tells me how shit I look. Her dark hair is in tightly scrunched curls, the way it always is without product.
“I’m sorry, Yvette. I shouldn’t have come; this must be awkward for you.”
“Hey, you come here.” She pulls me into her arms, her winter-knit jumper warm and soft. “Constance is nice, but you’re our number one, Clark, alright?”
I squeeze her tight. “Thank you. I just couldn’t face my apartment.”
“Hey, hey, hands off my wife, big man.”
I wink at Teddy across Yvette’s shoulder then let her go.
“Beer?” he asks.
“I’ve got the car.”
“What, and suddenly my spare room isn’t good enough for you?” Yvette scolds as she closes the door behind me.
I hold my hands up. “I’ve been slapped by enough women today. I’ll take a beer.”
I settle back into the sofa, legs spread, one arm hanging over the back, and I drop my head against the cushions behind me. “God, I love it here.”
“Home from home?” Yvette asks as she sits down in a striped chair and swings her legs beneath her, turning the volume down on the flat-screen TV.
“That, and far less hostile than every other place I’ve been this week.”
Teddy hands me a cold bottle of Bud. “No one wanting to beat the shit out of you?” he asks.
“And no one telling me I’ve destroyed the family name or broken their heart. No one verbally smacking me in the face because I defended her. No shale moguls smiling to my face while secretly wanting to outbid Layton Oil.”
Teddy slumps down onto the sofa perpendicular to mine, his own beer in hand. “I don’t mean to belittle your shit, Clark, but they sound like first-world problems to me.”
“Aaaaand you brought them largely on yourself,” Yvette adds.
I look at them both, mull over those statements, then laugh through a swig of beer. “Christ, you’re right. I’m a fucking mess,” I confess.
“I hate to tell you, but that’s not news to us,” Yvette says, jesting, I think. “I take it the broken heart refers to Constance. Have you seen her?”
“Today. She’s… God, I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“It was inevitable, Clark. Better hurt her as your fiancée than your wife,” Teddy says.
“That’s what I thought. Now I’m wondering whether I should have just kept up the façade to the grave.”
“What about the other one? Did you see her on Thursday?” he asks.
Yvette arches a brow in my direction. “Other one?”
“Not like that.” Ted jumps to my defence.
“I don’t get it,” she says.
