Two Little Lies

by Rhonda Helms

  Like yesterday’s lunch? The thought flew into my mind before I could stop it.

  I stared down into my tea. “All relationships get like that. No one can be around each other twenty-four-seven.”

  “Fair enough.” He paused. Sipped. “Does he ever get random calls at strange hours of the night? Or is anyone texting him a lot, blowing up his phone?”

  A light chill settled over my skin. How could Kyle know all of this? My throat tightened, and I found myself blinking rapidly. Okay, but still… Even with all of these signs, it didn’t mean West was cheating on me, right? Or was I so blind that I refused to see the truth?

  “Why are you asking me all of these questions?” I asked. I turned my attention to his face, expecting to see a sneer. But the look of faint pity in his eyes made my hackles rise.

  No effing way did I want this guy to feel sorry for me.

  “I can smell a cheater from a mile away,” he told me. Oddly enough, there was no ego in his voice; he said it like it was a verified fact. I opened my mouth to interrupt him, but he continued. “Even without having done one second of investigation on your boyfriend, I can tell you he’s cheating on you.”

  “That’s just crazy,” I declared. “No way in hell could you know that. Especially since you haven’t even started looking into it.”

  “Suit yourself.” He drank his tea.

  We sat in awkward silence for a few minutes. My heart thundered in my chest, and my stomach flipped a few somersaults. Kyle was such a know-it-all—knocking that suddenly smug look from his eyes would be my life’s biggest pleasure.

  I sucked in a breath through my nose and made myself focus on the twinge of anger so I could level myself. “You know what? Whatever. If you want to waste your time chasing this down, that’s fine with me. You’re just going to be proven wrong—and Bianca will be the one to pay for it.”

  If she was that eager to blow her hard-earned money on this stupid job, fine. I refused to spend one more second stressing about this. I had a life to live.

  I stood and drained the last of my drink, rinsed the mug and left it in the sink. “Thank you for making me a drink.”

  “Seems like you’re scared, Natalie,” he said in a low tone I couldn’t discern.

  I spun around with a scoff. “Scared? No. Pissed? Absolutely. I’m mad that my friend felt she had a right to intrude on my personal life. And I’m mad that you think you know everything.”

  Kyle leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing me with interest. “Do you have any idea how many cheaters I’ve busted over the years? Your boyfriend isn’t the first I’ve come across. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, you know.”

  The undertones in his voice, with empathy that could be fake or real, lodged under my skin. I didn’t want Kyle to feed me the same crappy line he fed all of his clients. I didn’t want to be that girl with the cheating boyfriend. And I also didn’t want my personal life on display for him, under scrutiny.

  “The only embarrassing thing here is your ego,” I retorted.

  I snatched my coat off the chair and stomped out the door to the hallway. His soft chuckle followed me.

  “I’ll see ya around,” he said as I left.

  I plunged down the front steps and onto the sidewalk, muttering under my breath. I barely noticed the cold because my blood was boiling, my cheeks on fire. How had I let him get to me so easily? Why did he aggravate me like this?

  No other guy I knew pissed me off in this manner. I was generally an easygoing person, happy with life. But one smug smile from Kyle and I was ready to lash out. Guilt pinched my chest, and I rubbed the sudden ache. Just because he was such a jerk didn’t mean I should react like that. Part of me wondered if I should turn around and apologize for lashing out at him. After all, he wasn’t the sole source of my anxiety today.

  I knew all too well that people cheated. It happened all the time. Just look at Anna’s parents—her mom had up and left her dad for another man, running away to a tropical paradise. I didn’t need the schooling from Kyle on that.

  I just couldn’t believe my boyfriend would do that to me. I was attentive to him. I bent over backward to accommodate his schedule. I did everything a good girlfriend should do.

  A call across the street jerked my attention away from my thoughts. “Hey, Natalie!” It was one of my apartment neighbors, Lorelei. She worked at the local café and was a sweet person who’d gone to high school with me and Bianca.

  With a loud greeting of my own, I walked over to her, a forced smile plastered across my face. Nothing like social interaction to distract me from the anxiety brewing in the back of my head and get me in a frame of mind to go to work.

  Chapter Four

  I pulled into the nursing home parking lot fifteen minutes before my three-to-eleven shift. Awesome. I was normally running in right on time, so it was good to be a little early.

  My phone buzzed in my purse. As I climbed out of my car and locked it, I dug in to get it out. It was Bianca.

  I bit my lower lip as my heart flipped in my chest. I knew it was time to stop avoiding her—experience told me she’d hound me until I talked to her anyway. I answered her call. “Hello?”

  “You answered. And I was just starting to think you were avoiding me,” she said in such an even tone that I couldn’t help but laugh a little. The jerk always did know how to weaken me, despite my intentions.

  I plodded across the parking lot. The wind had died down some, but it was still ridiculously cold out. My skin chilled; I fluffed my scarf around my neck and burrowed my chin into its warmth. “I was avoiding you.”

  Her sigh was clear on the other end of the line. “I know. I’m sorry—I really am. At the time, it felt like the right thing to do. But it wasn’t worth causing all of this stress between us.”

  “He’s my boyfriend,” I told her firmly. “Even if you don’t like him. You crossed a line, Bianca.”

  “I know,” she repeated, stronger this time. “And no, I don’t like him. I freely admit that to you, and you already have heard why.” The contrition was genuine in her voice, along with notable vulnerability. She paused. “I’m glad you answered the phone. I was starting to worry this might have been unfixable.”

  “I was really pissed at you,” I admitted. “Still am, to a degree. You should have talked to me about it before doing that.” I moved into the building and found a private corner in the lobby where we could talk. It was apparent we were going to hash this out now, and frankly, I wanted to get this shit off my chest. It had been festering for two days, crawling around in my head and ruining my sleep. “I could have handled this with West upon you bringing that evidence to me instead of dragging Kyle and Anna into it. I had lunch with my boyfriend yesterday and almost ruined the whole thing because of my anxiety.”

  Silence met me on the other end. I knew Bianca was listening, letting me talk it out.

  “You have no idea how awful that made me feel,” I said as my voice broke. “You’re my best friend, but you kept this from me—what you think you saw and hiring Kyle.” My eyes burned, and I blinked back the pain. “We’re supposed to be better than that.”

  I heard her gulp in a breath. “I didn’t realize it would turn out like this. I thought I was doing something good.” She sniffled. “But I see now that it hurt you, and I’m so sorry about that.” She sounded anguished. “I hope you can forgive me. I’ll call it off, no problem. Right now, in fact.”

  I glanced around the nondescript room with its beige furniture and white walls. The lobby was generic but clean and inviting. The receptionist behind the main desk, Vera, was busy talking to a middle-aged man, their low tones filling the emptiness in the room.

  “Actually,” I said, “I already went by to see Kyle.”

  “Oh.” A pause. “And what happened?”

  I chewed on my thumbnail and sank deeper into the plush chair. “I told him if he wanted to spend all this time researching a dead end, be my guest.” Hopefully the wobble
of nerves in my voice wouldn’t come through. An image of Kyle’s easy grin came to mind, and I found my heart thudding harder. I smooshed that reaction right down.

  “So…you don’t want me to cancel it?”

  “Nope. And when I’m proven right, you’re going to owe me, lady. I don’t want to hear you say another bad word about West. Not one.” I swallowed and forced myself to continue. “Because if we’re going to be friends, you have to accept this. Or else we’ll have to work something else out where you guys aren’t around each other.”

  God, I hoped it wouldn’t come down to that. I knew where that road would lead to—a choice between my best friend and my boyfriend. And I didn’t want to make that decision because I knew it would end up with my resenting Bianca, thus ruining our friendship anyway.

  “Okay,” she said. The seriousness in her tone rang through. “If he’s proven to…uh, not have done any of that stuff, I’ll eat my words, and I promise to never say a bad thing about him ever again.”

  A weight lifted off my chest and relief flooded me. I could tell she meant what she was telling me. Bianca’s promises were sacred to her, and she moved heaven and earth to keep her vows. She hadn’t broken one to me yet.

  “I’ll hold you to that.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Crap, I gotta start my shift.”

  “Talk more later?” she asked, hope shining in her voice. “Maybe we can get some coffee before I go clean offices tomorrow evening.” Bianca worked a wide variety of jobs, similar to Anna—not just because she needed money but because she didn’t like being tied down to one thing. She enjoyed doing different things right now.

  “Sure. That’ll be nice.”

  “Natalie, I’m…” Her words stalled off and she gave an anxious sigh.

  “I know you are,” I said gently. “And thank you.”

  We hung up. I sat in the chair for another moment as I shifted into my professional work shell. I liked my coworkers, but I didn’t really give them dirty details into my life. Partly because I was the youngest nurse there by at least ten years and we didn’t relate to each other.

  I smoothed my wind-ravaged hair, stripped off my coat and walked past the front desk toward the nurse’s station. “Hi, Vera,” I said with a polite smile.

  Her nod was equally polite in return as her eyes shifted to the clock. Probably making sure I was on time. For some reason, she liked to watch us all check in on our shifts. Vera’s gray-threaded hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and her cardigan was a bold blue. “Hello, Natalie.”

  I padded down the hall, hung my coat and purse then flipped through various notes lying scattered on the desk. Nothing with my name on it. “Everything going okay?” I asked the head RN, Marquita.

  She looked up from her file and gave me a genuine grin. “Been pretty quiet so far, except about an hour ago, Mrs. Jackson ran down the hall again. Naked.” Her heavy sigh made me chuckle. “That woman hates wearing her clothes.”

  “We should sew her into her shirts,” I said. At least once a week, Mrs. Jackson left her room and streaked as fast as she could hobble down the hall. Her dementia—the cause of her actions—was getting worse, but still, no one wanted to see that. I was glad I’d missed it. “I’m gonna do my rounds.”

  She gave me a salute and got back to scrawling on her files.

  As a newer employee, I wasn’t high on the totem pole, so my job mostly consisted of helping out the other RNs. Still, I’d grown connected to my clients, as I thought of them, and loved listening to them talk. Some of the stories they told me were wilder than anything I’d ever gone through. Even Bianca was shocked at times regarding all the sexual experiences and pranks these elderly had pulled back when they were younger. She enjoyed hearing my updates on what was going on.

  I knocked on Mr. Franklin’s doorframe and peeked my head in. “Good afternoon,” I told him.

  His wrinkled old face lit up when he saw me, and another piece of the stress chipped away from me. “Natalie, I was wondering where you’d been.” He gave a phlegm-filled cough into his fist and shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry. Lungs are acting up again.”

  I scanned his records. “Still fighting off that cold, huh?” I took his vitals—all within normal range for him. My pen flew across the paper as I filled in the numbers.

  He shrugged. “Winter’s been brutally cold.”

  “That it has been,” I agreed. “How’s your granddaughter? Did she have that baby yet?”

  That made his dark eyes sparkle. He ran a shaky hand over his shock of white hair. “She’s gonna pop. I think she’s past due.”

  “Did you convince her to name it after you?” He and I had been talking for a couple of weeks now about what the baby would be named. His first name was Josiah, and he’d insisted it was a great name—or if the baby was a girl, she could be Josie. Personally, I agreed.

  He shook his head. “She’s stubborn like her mom.”

  I patted his thin shoulder. “I’ll come back in and talk with you when I finish my rounds, okay?”

  His hand reached up to cup mine, and the dark skin of his face wrinkled with his heartfelt smile. “Thanks. Been kinda quiet in here today.”

  Probably hadn’t gotten any visitors. Poor man. I squeezed his shoulder. “I bet the cold’s keeping everyone holed up at home. I’m sure they’ll come by when they can.”

  With that, I left. Honestly, that was one of the hardest parts of my job—seeing the people who had infrequent visitors. Their loneliness made them start to disconnect with everyone around them, which led to depression and suicidal thoughts. Our facility prided itself on the personal connections we forged with our residents.

  I made my way from room to room, checking vitals, catching up on nursing home gossip. As funny as it sounded, old people were the biggest blabbermouths ever. They fed me the scoop on everything going on—like crazy sex acts being busted (six months ago, a nurse had stumbled in on a threesome. No, not kidding. I was so glad I’d been off shift that day).

  Today’s gossip circled around Mr. Brewster, who had a not-so-secret crush on Miss Feinstein that had been exposed today when one of her friends told her. She’d been shocked but had agreed to a dinner date on the enclosed patio tonight. My heart softened and swooned when I heard that.

  How cool was it that someone could find love at any age?

  As I left the room and headed to the next, I thought about West. Would he and I be like that, going on dates when we were elderly? Would we even be together that long? The thought of his eyes didn’t make my heart skip a beat the way it used to. I knew that kind of thing happened to couples who’d been together more than a few months, especially when their relationship was on the rocks.

  I remembered his excitement over our mysterious New Year’s Eve plans and a thrilling flutter stirred in my chest. It would be fun and give us a chance to reconnect. Heck, by January first, it was even possible all our issues would be behind us.

  I knocked on the door to my last room. Unlike most of our residents, who left their rooms open so people could wander in and out, Mr. Raphael kept his door shut at all times. Antisocial didn’t even begin to touch his personality. Probably didn’t help that he never had visitors.

  I didn’t hear a response, so I knocked again.

  “God, stop that foolish racket and come in,” he groused from behind the door. “I already told ya to.”

  It was hard to let his harsh words roll off my back, but I reminded myself that it wasn’t personal. He didn’t like anyone. Usually I was in and out of his room as fast as possible so as not to disturb him.

  “Good afternoon,” I said in a quiet voice as I closed the door behind me. The TV mounted on the wall was currently on a news channel. “Are you having a good day so far?”

  He grunted, his white brow scrunched in a permanent scowl. “I’m still alive, so there’s that.”

  Charming. I took his vitals. Pulse was a bit reedy, but that was to be expected at his advanced age of almost ninety. As frail as
he seemed, the man would probably outlive me due to sheer will of strength alone. “You most certainly are.” I recorded his stats then flipped the paper around to show him.

  I’d learned the hard way that Mr. Raphael liked to be kept in the loop on everything. Seeing the raw data I recorded was helpful to him and prevented him crabbing about us hiding things from him.

  For some reason, I had a compulsion to draw him out of his shell. Maybe it was from my confrontation earlier with Kyle, whose abruptness reminded me a bit of this man. “Did you do anything this weekend?”

  He kept his eyes locked on the TV like I wasn’t even in the room.

  Okay, that didn’t work. Maybe I should bring Bianca to visit him. That girl could get anyone to talk. She’d done wonders on Anna’s dad when he’d been in a deep funk, hiding out in his bedroom.

  “I’ll check on you later,” I mumbled as I turned to leave.

  When my hand was on the doorknob, I heard him say, “Shut it on your way out.”

  Geez. I clicked it closed and felt tension I hadn’t realized I’d had melt away from between my shoulders. He always made me stressed due to his gruffness, and sometimes it was hard to feel bad for him.

  But not once since I’d started this job had he gotten a visitor. I couldn’t imagine how lonely and abandoned by his family he felt. Not once had he mentioned anyone he knew or was related to by name. It was sad when I stopped to think about it.

  I didn’t get to see my family a lot since I worked varied shifts, but I knew if I needed anything, my mom and dad were a phone call away. Plus I had Bianca and Anna, not to mention West.

  Despite the stress and aggravation, I was determined to draw this man out of his shell. Somehow. I just needed to figure out the right motivator to get him talking.

  Chapter Five

  “This coffee is amazing,” I said with a sigh as I sipped my super-sugary latte. I tucked my legs under the table and felt the muscles unknot from my back. This week had been crazy at work, but I was now on vacation time until Monday—a whole five days off in a row. Bliss.