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We said our goodbyes shortly after Cal walked Bunny to her house across the driveway. I hugged Millie and said goodnight to Len before bundling up and walking into the driveway with Andy.
He didn’t say a word as he followed me to my car, opening the door and resting on the frame. I lingered beside him, my resolution to spend the night at Thea’s wavering.
“How’s your wrist?” he asked, nodding to my gloved hand.
Sore and tight and probably turning blue.
“Fine. Thanks for asking.”
The edge of his lips tilted up as his eyes met mine, a spark of electricity shooting through my body and making me regret calling Thea for just a moment. “Don’t lie to me, Nora.”
I stiffened. “We lie to everyone else, why not each other? I should go.”
I sat in the driver’s seat with a mixture of relief and disappointment when he softly closed the door. He gave me a wave as I started the car. I didn’t look back as I drove out of the driveway and back into town.
A bottle of wine and a good cry would put me back on the right path, whatever that path might be.
* * *
“Do you want to talk about it now?” Thea asked, arching an eyebrow and setting a cup of coffee in front of me.
I groaned, the perky yellow gingham-covered table against the pale green kitchen mocking my lousy mood. Thea sat across from me, her hair still in curlers, wearing a long pink robe with a white fringe.
“We can,” I said, eyes sliding over to the clock.
9:00 A.M. Too late to catch Andy. He texted me at seven, letting me know he would be leaving for Manchester by 8:30. I wished him a safe trip, stopping myself from doing something insane—like saying I loved him and wanted him to stay.
“Did he cheat on you?” Thea plopped two sugar cubes into her coffee, slowly stirring them with a gold demitasse spoon and probably plotting Andy’s murder.
“No.” I snorted. “He said he didn’t, and I think he’s telling the truth, but what do I know?”
“That sounds ominous, Nor.”
Picking up the delicate, glass coffee mug, I took a sip, injecting myself with enough caffeine to gather my thoughts. “He should have told me sooner about Payton, but I don’t think anything happened between them. But I don’tknow.I can’t know.”
Lies. We’d built our relationship on so many lies that I couldn’t figure out the truth anymore.
“Of course you can.”
“That’s the problem. I can’t.” I sucked in a breath, arranging the thoughts that had been whirling in my head all night. “I can’t know anything because we’ve been lying to everyone this entire time. We built this entire relationship on a lie, so how can we trust anything we say to each other?”
I fidgeted uncomfortably in my chair, eyes bouncing around the room for some purchase to anchor my thoughts. Thea leaned across the table, holding her palm out until I took it. She squeezed my fingers, and I shut my eyes, willing myself not to cry again.
“I love him, Thea. Like, really love him.” I sighed.
“That’s great! Wonderful! Congratulations! Why did you sleep at my house?”
I opened my eyes. “Because it won’t work. It can’t. We built this entire relationship on lies because we’d have an out in four years. But what now?”
“You stay married.”
“Great,” I said, the anxiety clutching my chest like a vise. “What do we tell people? The made-up story of how we fell in love? Do I tell Bunny that? Cal? Len?”
She shrugged. “Why not? They might not understand, but they’ll accept it.”
“What about Andy? Is he supposed to going to go to his investors and tell them he lied? His mentor?”
“He could.”
