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Today, Lucie has posted a picture of herself holding the twins as newborns. She has that drowsy, dreamy look on her face, the kind universal to new mothers. There’s a little bundle under each arm, both wrapped tight in hospital blankets, their mouths puckered in sleep. My heart twists, then splinters. God, I fucking hate her.
“Can you believe these two are about to be in first grade?!!!”she asks.
Everyone seems to have these vast stores of sympathy for Lucie because she was married to a dick. Do they realize how much she has in its place, though? She’s got a job, she’s got my husband, she’s got those kids...it’sbullshit.
I wasn’t planning to go to yoga, but sacrifices must be made.
“This is what we do,” I tell Kayleigh that evening, drinking another ridiculously overpriced post-yoga cappuccino. “Caleb still travels constantly for work, right?”
She hitches a shoulder. “He did when I was there. Lucie probably cried about that until he stopped.”
I flick my hand in the air, dismissing her concern. “His job requires travel. He’d have to sell the company before that changed. So you find out where he’s going, and then we start a rumor that he hooked up with someone during the trip. Lucie’s super insecure, clearly. This will tip her over the edge.”
Her nose scrunches. “I’m only friends with two people there. It’s not like I can tell the whole company.”
I wrap my hands around my coffee cup. “You won’t need to. Tell your two friends—you said they hate her, right? I guarantee they each tell at least one other person, in theoretical secrecy, and so on. No human is capable of truly keeping a secret, especially with something like that. No one’s even going to know where it started.”
She shakes her head, dismissing it. Kayleigh’s the sort that thinks she’s smarter than everyone else but never has a fucking idea of her own. “They might tell each other, but it’s never getting back to Lucie.”
“Eventually, after a couple of these trips that everyone’s talking about, someone’s going to pull her aside and she’ll understand what all those pitying looks were about. And if they don’t, we’ll make sure she gets an anonymous note.”
She spins her plastic coffee lid under her index finger. “Lucie will just ask him and he’ll deny it.”
“Don’t worry,” I reply. “Get me his travel schedule. I’ll make sure there’s proof.”
I drive home afterward and stop short at the sight of Beck’s bike in front of the cabin. My pulse starts ticking, fast and light, the way it did as a child when I knew something was about to happen, and I wasn’t sure if it would be good or bad.
Would he kick me out simply because I wasn’t nice enough to his fucking friend?No, he wouldn’t. But he might kick me out because he’s tired of the incessant tension in his own home.
I’dkick me out, under the circumstances.
I climb the stairs warily and walk inside. His eyes land on me in my yoga attire and remain there a beat too long.
“I have an idea,” he says, looking away. “The next step in your return to society.”
I curl up on the couch, wrapping my arms around my knees. “So far, your ideas have involved me doing your taxes and searching for my deadbeat dad. So forgive the immediate lack of excitement.”
“Infinite Zest is playing at The Midnight House tonight. And I can get tickets.”
My eyes open wide.
Yes.
Wait. No.
God, I haven’t seen a show in so long, and the mere idea of it makes my heart take flight. But I also associate concerts with a fair amount of drinking and at least a little something stronger. If it were anyone but Beck making the suggestion, I wouldn’t even consider it.
Except...itisBeck.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he adds.
I don’t deserve him. No one does. “Yeah, I know.”
I take a quick shower and emerge from the bathroom in black jeans and a low-cut tank. His gaze sweeps over me. He says not a word but somehow leaves me glad I made the effort.
We take his bike and park in front of the bar, exactly where he parked the first time I saw him years ago.
It’s a moment I’ve returned to in my head again and again—me, leaning against a brick wall waiting for Caleb to return, Beck pulling off his helmet and taking me in as if I was something he intended to devour, sloppy and voracious and unrepentant.
