I smiled up at him. “When we were younger. How much fun we used to have together.”
He chuckled, the brightness of his eyes returning. “All those nights with cheap wine and late-night movies.” His smile grew distant. “Remember when we couldn’t afford the electric bill and ended up using candles to cook the noodles?”
I giggled, the memories lifting their wings, fluttering through my mind. “It took hours,” I recalled, easing into the moment. “You used a wire rack to hold the pot. We went through what… four candles?”
“At least.”
“By the time it was done, the noodles were soggy, but we didn’t care. We were too drunk on wine and each other.”
“Making love and laughing,” he added, his smile stirring old feelings inside me. “It was perfect.”
I felt the air pucker, poised in anticipation. “I miss those nights.”
He kissed my forehead. Stayed there a moment. “Me too.”
When he pulled me closer, I felt heat burning behind my eyes. I was overwhelmed. Overloaded with hope and happiness. “I love you, Jack,” I said, an avalanche of emotions clogging my throat.
He pulled back, hearing the emotion in my voice.
“I love you, too,” he said, staring into my eyes. There was a subtle shift. A softening… the old Jack peeking through.
There you are, I thought, a smile spreading across my lips.
I tucked myself against him, and then we talked about everything. Talked more than we had in a long time. I felt him opening up again. Letting me back in, like all those nights in our tiny apartment. We were laughing so hard my stomach hurt by the time the carriage came to a stop. I didn’t want to get out. Didn’t want to lose the moment until a bright pink light caught the corner of my eye.
Blackbird’s Creamery.
The craving for ice cream came on strong. I never could resist dessert.
“Where to?” he asked as he took my hand in his, helping me out of the carriage.
“There,” I said, pulling him toward the gelato shop. “I want some ice cream.”
He stopped, halting me in my tracks. “Corinne, it’s too cold for ice cream. Come on. I’ll take you to a nice bar for a couple of drinks.”
I refused to let him win. We were married in the cold for a reason. Ice cream sundaes were served at our reception. “Come on,” I said, smiling, laughing. “I don’t want to drink. I want ice cream. Please?” I batted my lashes at him, standing on tiptoes in pleading.
Finally, he caved. “Fine. Quickly.”
I was beaming as I held his hand, pulling him into the shop. It was tiny, but the scents were large. There was an older man behind the counter, working on an ice cream machine that appeared to be broken. Some would call him a silver fox. He had salt and pepper hair. Gray stubble dusted along his sharpened jaw lines. His large nose was crooked in the middle.
He turned when we entered, and then headed to the back, carrying a screw driver.
I approached the counter. I already knew what I wanted. The chocolate monster.
“Jessi,” I heard the older man call, his voice deep and gravelly, with a serrated edge. “We have customers.”
A young woman came out from the back, small-framed and blonde with bright green eyes that reminded me of emeralds shining under sunlight. She was tying an apron around her waist, moving toward the counter, when she stopped and stiffened. I turned in the direction she was staring, finding Jack wearing the same expression.
Almost caught. Aware. Uncomfortable.
I felt realization scraping sharp fingernails down the back of my mind. Ripping into our moment, shredding it to pieces.
Jessi. Jessica.
It was her.
Fuck.
I was frozen solid, staring at the woman who had taken part of my husband’s heart. I wasn’t sure if they were still sleeping together. I hadn’t asked. But in that moment, I knew it was so.
She blinked away from Jack when the older man nudged her.
“What is it, Jess? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” The man laughed as he came back out, carrying a wrench.
Was he the man who had hit her?
Jack tugged on my hand. “Let’s go,” he whispered, sounding pissed.
She wasn’t what I had imagined. Blonde, yes, but I guessed I’d given her deformities to make it easier. She was beautiful in a quaint, helpless sort of way. It made sense. Jack loved being the hero.
I let him pull me away. Glanced back just before I left. Saw her heart breaking as she watched Jack disappear into the streets.
A weird feeling crept over me. Almost like guilt. Like I was the other woman, standing in her way.
“I fucking told you,” he said, storming in front of me as I tried to make sense of what just happened.
“Why are you yelling at me?” I asked as he hailed for a cab. My mind spun in dizzying circles.
He refused to look at me, his hands flying in the air in frantic, angered movements. “Because, Corinne. You never listen. I told you it wasn’t a good idea, but you just had to have fucking ice cream on a freezing ass night.”
My entire body stood to attention, nerves fraying, heart hardening. “It isn’t my fault you’re fucking the gelato girl,” I yelled, fists balled as heat pushed behind my eyes. “How the hell was I to know?”
His eyes were almost black. Teeth clenched. Glare harsh. “Because I said not to go in there.”
I was so shocked, I wanted to hit him. Wanted to scream at him. I stepped closer to him, lowering my voice as I spoke through my teeth. “So is that how things will be? The more you screw people in this city, the less places we’ll be able to go as a married couple?” I spoke every word as if it were a punch.
The shock in his eyes was bright and red. He wasn’t expecting me to volley the circumstances right back at him. He grunted as a cab pulled up to the curb.
I shook my head, disbelief and adrenaline shielding me from the onslaught of emotions sure to strike. “Today of all days, Jack? What a fucking anniversary.”
He hated when I cussed. It was rare I ever did, but there was this monster in me scratching at my veins. A green, ugly thing picking through every memory I’d collected with him, tossing them into the garbage.
“I’m sorry,” he said a moment later. He sounded like he meant it, but I was too far gone to care.
“Me too.”
When he got into the cab, I started walking. I needed to think. Needed a few minutes to process what happened and how it had all gone wrong so fast. I’d known he was having sex with someone else. So was I, but only because he’d brought that into our marriage. Was I being a hypocrite? What he was doing every Thursday wasn’t a secret. I’d given him the go ahead… hell, I set the damn rules. The other woman had just never had a face, so it made it less real for me. Jack’s reaction to being in the same breathing space as the two women he slept with told me he had feelings for her. She wasn’t just some piece of ass. He cared for her. That thought sparked another… He cared for her the way I’d come to care for Cole. What a mess. What a complete and total fucking mess.
“Corinne!” he shouted after me. “Where are you going?”
I stopped, spun around, hands shoved deep into my pockets. “For a walk,” I said. “I’ll see you at home.”
Chapter 22
Corinne
I didn’t plan on ending up at Cole’s, but that was where I found myself.
How long I stood in the hallway outside my apartment, debating if I wanted to go in or not, was a blur. Had it been a second. A half an hour? Eventually, I pulled up Cole’s number and asked him to meet me in the elevator.
He arrived on my floor just moments after.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as we sat on his couch. It was dark inside his apartment. Nothing but the colors bursting from the muted TV.
I stared at his large hands, my mind trying desperately to put my scattered thoughts back together. My eyes feeling like a dried-up well. “It’s our anniversary tod
ay.”
My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was too broken, chipped, and cracked in all the bright spots.
His body tensed beside me. “Happy anniversary.” His words were stiff.
“I saw her.”
“Who?”
His form grew blurry. “The one he’s been sleeping with.”
I felt him sink as he realized what was wrong. He pulled me into a hug, his warm arms wrapping around my small frame. The tears just fell, as if they had finally been given permission.
“She runs a gelato shop,” I said, her face plastered behind my lids. “The way she looked at him when she recognized him… I just… this weird feeling came over me.”
“What feeling?” he asked against my hair.
I felt my heart shiver with a coldness that seeped into my bones. “A sadness. Guilt. Like I was the other woman keeping them from being happy together.” Saying the words out loud felt like reading an obituary. They were final. Damning. Laying to rest all the hope the night had created. “And the fucked-up part… how many times has Jack been in your presence? How many times were we right under his nose? I have no… no right to be mad at him. I’m a fucking hypocrite.”
“Corinne,” he said, his lips skimming over my hair. There was a subtle sadness in his words. A sadness I didn’t want to feel. “Do you want a drink?”
“Please.”
He stood, returning moments later with two glasses of whiskey. I downed the one he handed me, welcoming the fiery burn. Praying it would scorch these awful feelings away.
“Another?” he asked, watching me, careful.
I nodded, then downed the second.
After I felt the burn deep in my bones, I settled back against the couch, thoughts bouncing like a ping-pong ball against my skull. “Can you just… can you be my friend for tonight? My head… it’s a mess and I—”
His large hand covered mine. “I’ll be whatever you need, babe. Always.”
I felt my thoughts settle.
He pulled out his phone, then pressed it to his ear as I gazed at the TV. He had been watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s and I couldn’t help but smile. It made sense. He was a romantic at heart.
“Yes, can you please send up some chocolate-covered strawberries?” A pause. “Yes. Thank you.”
He set the phone down. Winked. “The thought of gelato gave me a sweet tooth.”
I knew why he ordered them. They were my favorite. One of the many things I’d admitted to him when we’d been still getting to know each other.
“You want to watch?” he asked, pointing to the movie.
“I’d love to.”
I curled up next to him. Ate one too many strawberries after they arrived. Let the ugly of the day drown beneath the glass of whiskey I sipped on. My eyes felt heavy. My mind fuzzy. I must have drifted off, because when I opened my eyes, my head was on Cole’s lap. His fingers were in my hair, his head tilted back against the couch, the soft sounds of sleep coming from his mouth.
It was almost two in the morning.
Shit.
I sat up. Cole stirred awake. “Hey,” he said, smiling.
“I guess I fell asleep.”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
I kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Cole. Really. I needed to just be… heard.”
He smoothed his palm over my cheek. “Of course.”
“I should probably—”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, shoulders curved forward. “Let it go?”
I could tell he was annoyed by the answer by the way his lips flattened.
“He’s my husband, Cole.”
“Stay.”
I was tired. So fucking tired. “Cole…”
He inched closer, taking my hands in his. “He doesn’t deserve you, Corinne.”
Another reason. Another disappointing sigh.
He stood. I followed.
“Take this,” he said, pulling a key from his pocket. “I had it made for you, but have been waiting for the right time.”
I felt my forehead crease. “What is it to?”
A small smile. “My apartment. It will work in the elevator. You can use it whenever, even if I’m not here. If you just need a place to think or whatever.”
I rubbed his cheek. Closed his hand over the key.
“Corinne… please… it doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“But it does,” I said sadly.
The night felt like bricks on my shoulders, weighing me down, pushing me into hell.
“I have to go, Cole. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He didn’t stop me as I left him standing there, the key still in his hand.
Jack was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark with a half-empty bottle of vodka.
I hated vodka. Hated it even more on his breath.
“Where were you?” His tone was flat, words slurred.
I took my coat off, stopping to hang it up in the closet by the door. “Out.”
He sat forward. “Where, Corinne?” he said more firmly.
I’d never heard that tone in him before. Though we had our issues, we never fought. Never.
“You went to him, didn’t you?”
I winced at the accusation.
“You said there were rules.” A blackness tinged the air around us as I made my way over to him. The night dark and heavy.
“And you said you’d follow them,” I shot back. “I just needed an hour, Jack. That seems fair, doesn’t it?” I said spitefully, bringing up old hurts. I felt childish, but I was too tired to care.
He lifted his head. His gaze was pitch black, his hand tightening around his glass. Engaging him would be a bad idea. He was clearly drunk, and I was too tired to keep my mouth shut.
“So is that how it’s going to be then? We have an issue and you run to your other man?”
I couldn’t believe him. Who was he to criticize when he did the same damn thing? Rage unlike anything I’d ever felt reared its ugly head. I was sick of this. Sick of tiptoeing. Sick of pretending. Sick of trying to please him.
“Who says I have just one?” I said, venom lacing my words.
I was being cruel. But I couldn’t help it. He’d put us here. He wanted the open marriage.
Disgust shadowed his dark gaze. He stood, his form seeming to grow, towering over me.
I stepped back when he stalked toward me. There was something dangerous in the air around him. This wasn’t Jack anymore. He was an intruder. A stranger. Someone intent on making me pay.
He kept coming for me until my back was against the wall. “What the fuck did you just say?”
I was tired of his shit. Tired of staying quiet to keep the peace. To keep him happy.
“You heard me,” I said defiantly, refusing to cower to him any longer.
It happened so fast I barely had time to register. His nostrils flared, and then his fist went flying. I cried out, bracing myself as his fist connected with the wall beside me. Blood sprayed against the side of my face. I ran for the bathroom when I realized what he’d done. Grabbed a towel, every muscle in my body heavy with adrenaline.
“Jack,” I said, wrapping his hand.
His chest was heaving in and out. The anger slowly dissipating. He shook his head as if coming out of a daze. “I’m sorry,” he said, the fog lifting from his eyes. “I just… shit.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry, too,” I said, hands shaking.
I went into the kitchen. Wrapped some ice inside a washcloth, my heart slamming against my chest.
“That was… I just… the thought of you…” He put his hands around his head, face twisted with emotion. “I never really thought about it. I didn’t want to. I was so caught up in myself I didn’t give it any thought. But then you said—”
Like shattered glass, the emotion in his eyes cut me.
“How many?”
I was shaking my head, regret thick in my throat. I’d taunted him.
I put us here. “Just one,” I rushed out, feeling ashamed for pushing him. “The same one I told you about.”
His sigh was full of relief. “Maybe this was wrong.”
I froze.
“Maybe… maybe we should stop.”
A small bit of panic filled my chest. He’d handed me the words I’d been waiting so long for him to say… but Cole’s was who filled my mind. His smile. His words I’d never hear again.
“It was my fault. I provoked you. I overreacted when I saw her.”
His hand slid up my arm.
“We’re still… we’re still figuring this thing out…”
Unease flickered across his features. “Yeah, but—”
The words rushed out before I had time to process them. “I don’t think we should stop.”
Silence.
“We just… we need to keep to the rules, and try to be mindful of everything when we’re out together,” I added, voice shaking.
He was quiet for a moment. The war in his mind played across his forehead. The back and forth. I wasn’t the only one who would lose someone if we stopped. “Okay,” he finally said, nodding with realization. “You’re right. We just need to remain mindful.”
I kissed him, pushing away the truth neither of us wanted to face. It was easier to lie to myself than to see the truth. I’d become the master at lying. At pretending. So good at it I could barely tell the truth from the lie anymore.
After I helped him bandage his hand, we stood there in the kitchen, the clock ticking behind us. “I don’t think anything is broken,” he said, flexing his fingers. He paused, dropping his voice. “I’ll call maintenance in the morning.” Shame was thick in his words.
“Okay,” I said.
He held my face in his hands. “I love you,” he said, this time sounding somewhat desperate.
“I love you,” I admitted, wishing time could rewind.
Wishing I was someone else.
Chapter 23
Cole
I pulled up to Dennis’ house. Turned the car off.
He was bent over a shovel, scooping the snow from his stoop. It was one of the things I liked best about him. Though he was disgustingly rich, you’d never be able to tell by how he lived. He kept ordinary cars. His home was a standard size. He did his own shoveling. His own maintenance.
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