by Lisa Gillis
Every word is clearer as she draws closer—walking as she’s talking, and I soon learn—stripping as she’s walking.
“I called in. Enrique said we could come in later, or not. Our choice because the new guys are catching on fast and…”
She halts topless in the doorframe, surprised for the second time this morning at whatever visage I wear. “Seriously, Trey-be… What’s wrong this morning?” In a repeat of only minutes earlier, she encircles me in her arms.
Dammit. My dick responds to her bare breasts. Hard—with no hard feelings.
The words feel like sand in my mouth, clumping in my windpipe and grating on my tongue as they push out. “You married?” I don’t realize how hard I’m hanging to some miraculous hope that this thing is not true—that maybe in the dimness of the room, I’d misread somehow—until her face blanches. And watching the color fade from the face of this woman I love kills something inside me. “Married to him?”
“Not really…”
“Divorced?”
“No.” Her voice is small.
“Fuck, Sash! No! Nooo…” Holy fuck, I’m whining like my baby sister. I focus away from her, onto the sugar skull print of the curtains and get myself together. “How could you do this?”
Mark! God, no wonder the dude had tried to kick my ass every other day.
“You see, when we were all taking classes, Mark…”
I can’t hear this shit. It’s painful enough. Details will be excruciating. To make her stop, I interrupt again. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this—believe you!”
It’s a wonder he hadn’t stabbed me in my sleep!
“I’m not with him.”
“But you’re not, ‘not with him,’ apparently!”
Fuck! If I’d been married to Sash, even if we’d been separated, I couldn’t have tolerated seeing her with some other prick … Why didn’t he break my face?
Her silence is shredding my soul.
“Are you married, Sash?”
If he’d come after me like a rabid dog instead of being a simple dick, I could have guessed. I would have known there was something more than Sash said.
“Yes.” Her chin moves up a notch and she looks me dead in the eye. “But Trey, listen. You’re the one—”
“I trusted you. I thought you were, thought you were…”
My soul mate.
I feel confused. As if I’m in some sort of altered reality. How could she bring me into her bed with him on the other side of the wall? I thought Sladen and I were friends. How could he have not told me? I haven’t felt anything close to a friendship with Mark since I hooked up with Sash—and now I know why—but why hadn’t he said something while trying to beat the shit outta me? I feel betrayed by all of them.
Yet, no betrayal matters like Sash’s. Sash’s duplicity hurts more than anything I’ve ever felt.
Feeling her touch—the curve of her hand to my forearm, I jerk away. I’m still trying to work through this. But nothing she says can make it right. No explanation will change the fact that I’ve been having an affair with a married woman, and she let me unknowingly do it—worse, she let me fall in love with her.
Married. Sash is married.
I realize I’m staring at this new stranger in front of me when she suddenly moves.
“Screw you!” She practically spits the two words in my face as she drops her defensive game and plays offense. Fiery anger replaces the devastation in her expression and tone. Striding over to the bed, she picks up and pulls on one of my work shirts, covering her naked torso. Papers rattle as she crams them in the box, slamming the lid atop it. “You’re really going to accuse ME of hiding shit? You’re so damn secretive about your family, and where you come from. Talking about Texas all the time, but saying you’re from Florida. Talking about customized Lamborghini seats like you’ve sat in one. Talking about Tomorrowland like you’ve experienced it! Ordering wine like you know it. ”
She spits out the specifics. So many things I’d apparently slipped up on without realizing it. I remember most incidents. Sometimes she’d teased when it happened. But because she’d never called me out until now, I’d thought these things had been accepted as casual conversation.
Carelessly tossing the shoebox to the top shelf of the closet, she slams the door and turns. “I don’t even know who you are!”
That statement slams into me with the force of a boulder even as I shake my head in denial. “YOU are the only person who knows me. Really knows me. You don’t have to know my trivia to know me. You see through me. The good. The bad. The everything. You and only you know me.”
I shrug out of the work shirt I’m wearing, drop it to the bed, and jerk open a drawer. Extracting one of my long sleeve tees, I put it on and leave the drawer gaping. I find her in the mirror, watching my movements. Grabbing my backpack from the corner, I set it atop the dresser.
“You know what?” My attention is on my bag, and I jerk at the zipper when it sticks. “Whether I’m Tristan Loren from Dallas, Texas, or trying to be an average Trey Duplei from Florida doesn’t change the person I am inside—it’s not important because it doesn’t change the ‘ME’ you know. I don’t have a piece of paper binding me to someone else ‘till death do us part! If I did, I sure as shit would have thought it important enough to clue you in!’”
She doesn’t flinch with my revelation. Of course, she may not know who Tristan Loren is, until she Googles him. Her back remains ramrod straight, her arms crossed over the shirt. During last part of my tirade, she visibly crumbles.
“Goddamn you!” Her voice is guttural and trembles on the syllables. “Go!”
“I’m trying!” The zipper finally gives, and I scoop my clothing from the drawer, transferring it into the bag.
“Go then!”
“I am!” I turn, swinging open the closet and begin to yank clothing from hangers.
“Just go…” She sinks to the bed.
I’m packing at a fast and furious pace. Sash curls into a ball, sobbing, a sight, and sound that are tearing my heart out. I’m hurting because she’s hurting, as much as because she hurt me.
In the front room, I drop the backpack and head to the second story where I pack up my guitar. Back down the staircase, so fast I almost trip—just like the time when I was four—to the main room. I cushion my tablet between clothing as I slide it into the backpack.
On the sofa table is a couple of drawings printed from Sash’s graphic tablet. The newest designs for Sladen’s template collection.
One of them she’d presented to me a few nights ago with a goofy grin. “For the wackos who ink their lover’s initials.”
It’s a heart with lasers of light shining from the back through the lettering.
“I just might be a wacko.” I’d told her as I snatched it from her. On closer inspection, I’d noticed the hairline crack down the center. The start of the traditional broken heart crooked line. “Wait, this should come with a warning,” I’d joked. “So some drunkard doesn’t jinx his relationship when he gets the tattoo without seeing the fault line.”
I slip it into my guitar case before zipping it up.
I’m the idiot. The fault line that had been there all along is now gaping after the quake my heart just took.
With a last look around the room, I layer into my hoodie and coat, and move into the kitchen. My bike is parked in its normal spot in the garage just outside the door. Making sure to lock it behind me, I descend the few stairs, pulling on my gloves as I walk.
I’m wrestling with the pre-automatic-era garage door when the backdoor bursts open. Her hair is mussed, her eyes red, her lashes still spikey with tears. For the fiftieth time in just under that many minutes, hope clutches my chest. I fantasize this is not what it seems—that the piece of paper is a bogus printout for some crazy reason. And then logic takes over.
“Are you married…? Yes…”
The stabbing pain in my chest is excruciating.
Her arm swings out, holding some
thing before her as she moves down the stairs. “Here.” She stops next to my bike and waits for me to approach. “Take it. I’ll get another. I’ve done it before. It only takes two days.”
When I’m in range enough to see, I stare at her debit card without reaching for it. Not long ago, after coming across my rolls of cash stuffed into socks, she’d offered to bank my money with hers. Maybe it was stupid, but I’d accepted.
“The withdraw limit is four hundred a day. Just do whatever you need to do.”
Apparently, the married woman had integrity. She could easily have kept my money. Irrationally, funding my road trip had been the last thing on my mind when getting my things and fleeing the house.
I take the plastic from her hand because it’s the easiest solution. I could go down to the ATM, withdraw four hundred, and bring it back. But that amount would make a tight trip, and I’ve banked at least three times that much. “Thanks.”
“Be careful. Please.” Her eyes are earnest, and the care in them causes my gaze to flinch away.
I don’t say anything. I don’t trust what will come out if I do since my confused emotions are an array of contradictions. Lifting my leg, I straddle the bike and zip the card into my pocket. When the motor roars to life, I fit the helmet onto my head. Only then, do I look around and find I’m alone.
Chapter 41
Tell Her
In all the time they’d been married, Jack had never been the one between the sheets of a hospital bed.
She had been there briefly with the birth of each of their girls, and then once again with a minor surgery.
It didn’t look right for his dark mass of hair to contrast with crisp white industrial linens.
Jack stirred, his eyes fluttering open, and she hurried to his side. He’d been conscious a couple of times but only for a few minutes. The concussion he’d suffered when hitting the tile kept him groggy, as well as the medicine entering his system intravenously.
When he swallowed a couple of times and moved his tongue to his lips, she opened a water bottle and dropped a straw in. Greedily he devoured the fluid until she pulled it back, unsure how much he should have.
“Damn, Mariss. What the hell?”
“I don’t know if you should drink so much…”
“No, I mean… What the hell happened? Why am I here?” His eyes darted around the obvious trappings of a hospital room.
The attending physician had warned her that it was common for head trauma patients not to remember the few minutes leading up to it.
“You fell. At your parents’ house. You have a concussion…”
His head twisted again to the machinery around him. “I had a heart attack. A fucking heart attack, didn’t I? Mariss!”
“No! No, honey. You didn’t. The diagnosis is ‘stress induced cardiomyopathy.’” The last word was a tongue twister, but she slowed to get it right. “Your heart was weakened by a rush of endorphins. But it’s going to be fine. Just a few weeks recovery time.”
“A few weeks?”
“Not here. You likely go home in the morning. But a few weeks of medicine.”
She took in the freaked out sheen of his eyes and willed her own expression to be neutral. Zen. Calm.
She was coming unhinged too, but logically, she knew there was no reason to be. They were lucky. He was going to be fine. And until he realized that, he didn’t need to stress over it.
He seemed to relax some, and she busied herself with his bedding, pulling the covers up over his bare arm. Heaven help her when he realized he was in a hospital gown. As if reading her mind, he stiffened, his heavy lids rising to focus on her face.
“I can’t stay here! Mariss, my honey, we have to go!”
“No. Uh uh. This is important. Even though it wasn’t a heart attack, the doctor stressed your heart is weak right now. They need to monitor it overnight.”
“Where’s my phone?”
“I don’t know. But your dad… Your dad is handling everything…” The Jewelstone business she meant, but she trailed off at the panic in his eyes and the determination fueling his movements when he threw the spread off his arms again. “Stop, Jack! You’re going to…” She couldn’t even say it—couldn’t speak of another heart episode.
“J.J.! Honey, J.J. called! That’s what I was trying to tell you when this happened.”
“What?” The interrogative was a screech from her lips.
A nurse bustled into the room at that moment. “Awake finally, Mr. Loren?” Going directly to the IV drip, she made an adjustment. “Your heart rate is up a little more than we would want so I’m giving you a five milligram dose of diazepam. Is there anything I can get you? Are you hungry?”
“I’ve got to go.”
While the nurse argued with him, Marissa paced and finally lost her patience. “What did he say? What did J.J. say? Where is he?”
This earned her a stern frown from the R.N. “Mrs. Loren. Could we speak?”
“Voicemail.” Jack carried on as if the woman hadn’t spoken. “He left a voicemail. From a weird number.”
“Mrs. Loren!”
“No! I…” When her eyes fell on Jack in the hospital bed hooked to various monitors, she deflated. “I understand what you’re going to say. But I promise you. We can’t leave him for even a minute right now.”
Jack would have the IV out and be out of that bed in an instant. Her internal war waged. Jack who shouldn’t be stressed again. But Jack Junior who might have called because he needed them.
“Jack.” She ran her fingertips down a stubbly jaw. “You scared the hell out of me. And if you don’t stay still and rest… I’m afraid you’re going to scare me like that again. Don’t. Okay?” Sinking her gaze into his dark one, she willed him to understand the seriousness of what was going on. “I’m going to find your phone.”
Maybe the drug dose hit him. Or maybe he saw the reasoning. Because he stilled. “Hurry, okay?”
Chapter 42
Deep Freeze
I’ve only been on the road an hour, and already I feel like a Popsicle buried and forgotten in the deep freeze. One of the orange ones that both June and Zoë hate. Dad doesn’t even eat the orange. Now I’m getting delirious. Can I feel my fingers?
Sixteen more hours of this. Is it possible? Maybe I should go directly south and then once I reach a warmer state head back west. I pull off at the next truck stop to consider this.
It actually hurts to stretch my limbs enough to get off the motorcycle. I feel like I’m limping as I make my way into the warmth of the store. The café part is off to the right. With a hot drink first and foremost on my mind, I veer in that direction.
I have a weather site pulled up on my tablet, intently studying the conditions and temperature of my route, and I’m on my second cup of coffee when a man not far down the lunch counter from me speaks.
“You from Texas, boy?”
I’m a little freaked at first until I realize he’s staring at my visible screen with the route neatly mapped. I nod, not in the mood for chat, but he moves another seat over, leaving just one between us.
“I saw you pull up. Nice motorcycle.”
“Thanks.”
“Not so practical this time of year for a cross-country trip.”
“Maybe not.” I keep my eyes on the screen, hoping he’ll take the hint.
“Look, I’m headed to Nashville. Will be there around dark. I’ll give you a ride that far.”
I take a swallow of coffee. This is what every kid is warned about from grade school on, right? No taking rides from strangers.
“My trailer’s empty. We can carry your bike. Then in the morning, you head south from Nashville until you hit twenty. Weather’s decent down that way. You’ll still be cold, but no danger of dying from it.”
I take another sip. The weather app clearly showed the temperatures weren’t getting better until nearer interstate twenty. Was I stupidly going to die from hypothermia or frostbite? “I don’t know. Thanks, but I don’t want to
put you out.”
“Look, you seem like a smart kid. You have to know you can’t ride more than an hour in this weather. Twenty-five degrees is zero or below at interstate speeds.”
Well that explains the deep freeze feeling. I’d literally been more than deep freezing.
“I get you don’t want to ride with a trucker you don’t know. I’ve seen The Hitcher too. Text your family my license plate number, the name of my company. Hell, here’s my driver’s license.”
He lays it on the counter between us.
“Or don’t. But I’m telling you, kid. Seriously rethink getting back on that bike. Don’t you have someone you can call to come get you?”
Apparently not. My own dad won’t return my calls. My girlfriend is married to another man.
I shake off the pity party and reach for his driver’s license. “Thanks Mr… Prescott. Just let me settle up.”
He moves back to his place, and I hear him order a coffee to go. I slip the debit card from my billfold and do the same before paying my bill. The waitress gives me a flirty smile when she sets the container of coffee down and passes the card back. “Enjoy your day, Mr. Patki.”
The name hits my ears, ringing and stinging.
My gaze drops to the plastic, and I wonder how I’ve never noticed the name embossed on the front the few times I’ve used it myself in an ATM.
S.D. Patki.
Chapter 43
Call Waiting
The rings went to voicemail and Jack watched as Marissa impatiently waited out the electronic voice. “J.J., this is Mom. Call me back as soon as you can, okay?” Her eyes welled with tears as she jabbed her finger on the end icon.
“Give it here.” Jack requested from the bed, and she passed his phone over. Hitting redial, he waited and was as disappointed as she had been when their son didn’t answer. “J.J., son, please call us back. I just got your messages. I have a new phone and I wasn’t getting them. I’m so sorry.”