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I wait until he’s gone to lean in. “So you’re going to plant something?”
He picks up his knife and fork. “I was hoping that’s where you’d come in. I’m going to be the number-one suspect, so I need a bulletproof alibi. I have a key to her van—if you put something in there, I could call in an anonymous tip when she goes to school to pick up the kids and say I saw her doing cocaine in the parking lot. She’ll get stopped, andvoila…mission accomplished.”
I poke at the salmon I ordered and force myself to take a small bite. “I’m not sure it’s as easy as you think. She’ll say she was set up, and they’ll find nothing in her bloodstream.”
He hitches a shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll still have to explain how she wound up with cocaine in her car. I’ll get temporary custody of the kids while it’s being adjudicated and she’ll come running.”
I laugh unhappily. “You make it sound so very easy, yet I notice you’ve got me handling the parts that are actuallyillegal. And I want Lucie and Caleb to split up as badly as you do, but evenIdon’t want to be responsible for making someone lose her kids.”
He leans forward eagerly, planting his forearms on the table. “But that’s not what you’re doing. She’s never going to lose custody no matter what because she’ll get back together with me before that happens. She loses nothing, my kids regain their family, and you regain yours.”
The whole plan is awful. My brain vacillates between sudden, unfortunate sympathy for Lucie, because she is clearly married to the world’s biggest jackass ever, and something steelier. Am I really going to pity her? No matter what he does, she comes out of this with two adorable little kids.
I don’t want any part of his plan, but the Lucies of the world don’t deserve all the fucking joy there is—I’m sort of relishing the idea of Jeremy redistributing the wealth.
“Needless to say, this whole thing has to stay between us.” His hand lands atop mine, but the gesture isn’t meant to be affectionate. It’s a warning. “You trusted me with some sensitive information that could make you look really bad if it got out—the whole Miami thing—so I’m doing the same.”
Our gazes catch as I grasp his meaning: if I breathe a word of this, he’ll tell everyone what I did. Will his next step be to blackmail me? To force me to plant the drugs, or do something even worse? The strange thing is that it’s not Caleb’s reaction I worry about when I picture it—it’s Beck’s.
On the way home from lunch, I imagine coming clean. I could tell Beck about the ads, Kayleigh, Miami. Surely it would be better to confess than let Jeremy pull me into a plan that could get me thrown in jail, but God only knows how Beck will react. If he kicks me out on my ass, he’d be right to do so, because what kind of person does the shit I have?
I decide to make dinner for him, a small penance for meeting with Jeremy, for refusing to give him what he wants, for not going to meet Jane. It’s probably too small a penance, but it’s all I can come up with.
I drive to the store, swallowing hard when my eyes land on the guy with the vacant stare standing near the doors—the same guy who was across the street when I first returned to Elliott Springs. My mouth waters at the idea ofabsence. Of having this knot in my stomach slowly unwind until I’m floating above it all and empty.
I move past him and into the store. But even as I pick up chicken and mushrooms and potatoes like some 1950s housewife, there’s a voice in my head whispering justifications.You just need a little bit to unwind. It’s tension making things bad with Beck now, and maybe this will help.
I pay for the groceries and practically run to my car lest that voice in my head offer an especially good argument at the wrong moment.
The cabin is dark and lonely. It’s nearly six—I’m surprised he’s not home yet, if he left the bar at four the way he’d said he would. I picture him telling Suzanne about my bullshit while she ties a cherry stem with her tongue. I betshe’dbe thrilled to go to Rachel’s with him if he asked.
Resentment swirls in my chest, though I’ve got no proof he’s done anything wrong. I peel the potatoes so aggressively that it’s a miracle I don’t lose a finger in the process. I did what I was fucking supposed to: I fought the urge to use. I didn’t agree to Jeremy’s plan. I’m here making this lame dinner in Beck’s empty cabin, but when is it going to actually feelgoodto do the right thing?
The food is done by seven and is cold by eight. I text him and he doesn’t reply. By nine, I’m screaming at the cabin walls, and by ten, when he finally walks in, I’m ready to throw knives.
“You want to tell me why you’re home this late?” I demand.
He leans against the door, folding his arms across his chest. “You want to tell me why you had lunch with Jeremy?”
I suck in a breath at the pinch of fear. We ate in anothercity, for Christ’s sake. And if he knows about our lunch, what else does he know? “I wasn’t on adate. He just wanted to commiserate.”
A muscle in Beck’s jaw spasms as he grinds his teeth. “That’s fucking great. You’re still weeping over a guy you haven’t had anything to do with in over a year. Thanks for fucking explaining.”
I stiffen, suddenly unsure. I wasn’t really talking about Caleb at all today, was I? I don’t think I ever even alluded to missing him, which is strange. It was all about Lucie. But Beck is not going to turn this around on me. I’m allowed to be upset that my husband has moved on. I’m allowed to still be bitter. “You knew the deal. This can’t be news to you.”
“Stupid of me,” he says, grabbing the helmet and opening the door again, “to think it might have changed.”
I hold a hand to my throat as he walks out, and even as I’m raging at him for expecting too much, for turning our relationship into something it’s not, I’m fighting the urge to cry.
He knew I wanted Caleb back. Was I ever unclear about that? Does he really think I’d give up my plans for some amorphous thing with him we’ve never even discussed?
I don’twantto discuss it. But I do want him to come back home.
I’ll set things right if I can.
But I still can’t promise him anything.
37
