“A million dollars and your first born child.”
“You drive a hard bargain, but it might be worth it.” He leaned closer again and I inhaled his cologne. My stomach flipped and a shiver skittered down my back. “Would you like me to sign that contract with blood? Or will a regular old pen work.”
“Blood, if you please.”
I expected something witty and charming, but instead his laughter died and his expression turned serious. “It’s nice to see you smiling again, Kate. It looks good on you.”
My blush turned into a blanket of tomato-red and I wanted to press my ice-cold glass against my cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“Is there room?”
My head snapped up and I forced a smile on my face. Our private moment was interrupted by more co-workers. I could feel Kara’s glare across the table, but I couldn’t look at her or I would burst into laughter.
Andrea Turner and Meg Halston joined our group, dragging chairs with them. Eli and I were forced apart so they could squeeze between us.
I took a long drink and braced myself for two of the most annoying people I had ever met. Andrea and Meg worked in the office. Meg was the school nurse and Andrea worked at the front desk. They were both in their late thirties and the center of the gossip control tower at Hamilton.
I had never gotten along with Andrea. She had been snide with me from day one and I had no reason to try and get on her good side. I avoided her as much as I could, especially after I’d overheard her tell Meg that Nick left me because I was as frigid in the bedroom as I was in the classroom.
“Sure,” Eli answered politely.
I had no idea if he genuinely liked these two or if he was just being polite, but I could barely restrain my cat claws. I focused on finishing my second drink and scrolling through my phone to see if I needed to download the Uber app to get home.
“I can’t stand these bitches,” Kara grumbled in my ear.
“Me either,” I agreed.
“Where’s your hubby?” The obnoxious voice grated on my nerves until I realized Andrea was talking to me. Then it went from grating to stabbing and I wanted to flee.
I lifted my chin and met her calculating gaze. “Me?” I asked pointlessly.
I tried not to hate Andrea just because she had perfect hair that fell in shiny, curled waves to her shoulders and a tiny nose and porcelain skin. She looked like a Barbie doll. Even her boobs were over proportioned.
I glanced down at my chest and tried not to wince. Boobs were not a legitimate reason to hate someone.
Right?
Sure. Right.
No, she had way worse qualities than perfect looks. Her personality was absolutely unforgivable.
“We’re not together anymore,” I answered lamely. “You know that.”
She canted her head at me and laughed. “Do I?”
I cleared my throat and willed a waiter to come over by the sheer power of my desperate need for another drink.
Andrea let the awkward silence drag on for a few more painful moments before she cemented her place in hell and said, “That’s too bad, Kate. He was a catch.”
“Let’s get more drinks!” Kara shouted.
Thank god for best friends.
I stood up so quickly, I almost knocked my chair backward. Kara caught it with her panther-like reflexes and then we escaped to the bar.
“Shots!” she shouted at the bartender. “We need shots!”
“Of what?” He raised his eyebrows at us, amused curiosity dancing in his expression.
“Something strong,” Kara threw back.
“Something painful!” I added.
The young bartender’s face lit with laughter. “You got it.” He looked between us and clarified, “Two?”
“Two,” I answered immediately. I saw Kara’s eyes flicker back to the table and there was no way in hell I would let her take shots back to Andrea to prove just how pathetic I was. No doubt, she already knew. I didn’t need to advertise this shit.
The bartender poured two tiny glasses of gasoline, I mean, cheap tequila and handed them over. For a half second, I deliberated asking for a lime, but I couldn’t waste any more time. I picked up the clear liquid and slammed it down, sputtering through the worst of the burn.
“Oh, god,” I groaned.
“I might puke,” Kara winced. “I’m not kidding. That was really bad.”
“Another!” I shouted at the bartender.
He looked at me like I was absolutely crazy, the good fun draining away, replaced with concern. I wagged my finger between Kara and me and looked at him expectantly.
“Alright,” he mumbled. This time he pulled out something a little smoother and handed us limes to go with them.
Kara and I slammed the second set of shots and bit down on our limes to ease the fire.
“I hate mean girls,” Kara hissed after we’d acclimated to the new burn of alcohol.
“I hate divorce.”
She laid her hand on my shoulder sympathetically, but there was nothing else to say.
The rest of the night went on like that. Eli and Kent came over to talk to us after a while and we laughed over another round of tequila shots. Worse karaoke and more gossip continued, but mostly there was relaxing.
I avoided Andrea and Meg as often as I could and let Eli entertain me with his funny stories and witty sarcasm.
I wasn’t used to a man’s focus. And I really wasn’t used to a man like Eli, a man that paid attention to what I said. A man that paid attention to me.
“It’s late,” I said after blinking at my phone. Kent had convinced Kara to dance with him and Eli and I had been left alone. I leaned against the sticky bar, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stand very long without its support. “I’m going to be worthless tomorrow.”
Eli gave me his half smile, “Do you want a ride home?”
I hadn’t seen him drink anything but water for the last two hours, so I hoped that meant he was sober. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Let me grab Kara.”
His gaze moved to the dance floor and when it came back to me, it was unreadable. But then again, that could have been the booze.
I retrieved my friend from the dance floor. She came willingly, but I could tell I took her from a good time. She was more relaxed than usual and I hated interrupting her. But we did have to be at school bright and early in the morning and our sanities were still salvageable if we left now.
Eli led the way out to his pickup truck. My eyesight was a little blurry, but I couldn’t stop from smiling at the rusted wheel caps and faded paint. Eli’s old Chevy just seemed to fit him in a way I couldn’t explain. It was old, but it was also comfortable and full of character.
He held the door open for us and Kara nudged me in first. I tried not to fumble too much as I slid into the middle seat. Kara climbed up after me and Eli slammed the door shut. My ears rang in the new silence, damaged from the calamity of the bar. I slumped against the bench seat, the rough fabric scratching the backs of my knees and realized exactly how tired I was.
Eli climbed into the driver’s seat, filling the cab with his cologne and the light tang of sweat. His warm thigh pressed into mine and I was too tipsy to feel self-conscious. I let my leg rest against his and felt the heat of his body to the tips of my toes.
That small touch kept me more alert than I should have been with the alcohol swimming in my blood. His touch did all kinds of things to my head, including keeping me silent. Eli and Kara talked on the way to her house, but I couldn’t find the courage to open my mouth.
It was stupid. Completely stupid. That small connection should mean nothing. I shouldn’t even be worried about Eli’s leg pressed against mine. And yet, it was the most intimate I had ever been with someone else since I met Nick. I had never been this forward with another man. Ever. I didn’t need to be.
And the entire ride to Kara’s apartment I fought a war between excitement an
d shame. The thrill of my attraction to Eli fought seven years of loyalty to my husband. I didn’t know whether to grin like an idiot or puke.
Finally, we dropped Kara off and I broke the contact between us, sliding to the passenger’s side. I gave Eli my address with a shaking voice. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I had crossed some invisible barrier tonight that I had set up myself.
I was too confused and too infused with alcohol to know if the buzzing in my veins was celebration or sorrow. And I was too tired to care.
“I had fun hanging out with you tonight, Kate,” Eli’s low rumble floated in the warm air of the cab.
This time my smile came easily and I stopped worrying about all of the rules I broke tonight or the consequences of my actions. “I had fun hanging out with you, too.”
I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “You going to be okay to get inside?” he asked gently.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
We sat silently until it became a little awkward, until I knew I should move.
I had just touched the handle when Eli’s voice stopped me. “Kate?”
This time I dragged my gaze to his. “Yeah?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
I smiled slowly. “I might not look this pretty, but yeah, I’ll be there.”
His lips tipped up into a flirtatious smile. “I’m looking forward to it, pretty or not.”
I left his truck with a smile on my face, a smile that didn’t leave until I had let myself into my dark house, a smile that stayed in place until after I’d brushed my teeth and climbed into my bed with Annie curled up next to me.
It was then that my smile slowly disappeared… that it turned into a frown as I stared up at the still ceiling fan and spread my body out on a bed I had shared with my husband in a house we bought together.
I expected to fall asleep quickly, but I tossed and turned until the alcohol wore off and my eyes hurt from unshed tears.
Eli was a distraction from the truth of my misery. Eli was fun to flirt with and divert my single-minded attention, but he didn’t fix the problems inside me. He didn’t solve my broken marriage or my heartbreaking divorce.
When I finally fell asleep, I thought I had done so sober. So when I woke up in the morning and found a new text message on my phone, nobody was more surprised than me.
Nick had texted: Me too.
I was confused until I saw the text sent directly before that one… the one sent from me at three in the morning. This is killing me.
Chapter Seven
14. He doesn’t notice the little things.
The next morning was brutal. I didn’t think I had ever felt this bad.
Besides the surprise text from Nick, my head had been squeezed in a vice grip and filled with a hundred dancing monkeys- the kind with the crashing cymbals- and my stomach threatened to upheave every time I moved or walked or talked or breathed or decided to keep living.
I crawled out of bed feeling like my mouth had been wrapped in cotton and dragged myself to a cold shower. The freezing water warred with my massive headache, but at least my body felt super-cooled.
I gingerly picked at a breakfast of Alka-Seltzer and Tylenol and washed it down with a huge glass of water, which did nothing to settle my upset stomach.
By the time I had dressed in my usual black pencil skirt and blouse, I only felt just this side of death. I glanced at the shoes in my closet and promptly stripped out of everything I had put on.
It was a flats and pants kind of day. I would not survive heels or skirts or anything but the most comfortable outfit I could manage. And since yoga pants were usually frowned upon by the administration, my tailored, wide-leg pants and a light pink sweater were going to have to cut it.
Thankfully, in the middle of October, the weather had cooled significantly.
Chicago falls could range from muggy heat that never wanted to leave to early winters that layered the ground with snow and ice. This autumn, thankfully, fell right in the middle. The breeze was crisp enough for light jackets and sweaters, the grass in my small front yard had begun to frost over in the mornings and the lone tree in front of my house had turned a brilliant rainbow of golds and reds.
It felt like football and Halloween and I loved every second of it.
By the time I parked my old Ford Focus in the teachers’ lot, I felt like a living, breathing human being again. Granted, a living, breathing human being with a nasty hangover headache and the kind of nausea that turned my skin green, but still. It was an improvement.
I met Mrs. Chan at the mailboxes and noticed the equally sickly hue to her complexion. She stared at her box with the kind of abject vacancy I could appreciate this morning.
“It’s going to be a long day,” I grumbled.
She jumped, startled to find me standing next to her. Eventually, her expression settled back into miserable. “Ugh,” she agreed.
I offered her a grim smile. “Starla’s is a bad idea during the week.”
She shook her head and said, “If any of those little bastards pull the fire alarm today, I will murder them.”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline and I had to press my lips together to keep from gaping at her. Mrs. Chan was somewhere around fifty years old with a graying bob and a sweet smile. I had never heard her talk like that before.
Ever.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” I offered tranquilly.
She held up her travel mug and wiggled it gently. “My homeroom better hope this works.”
“I think we’re all hoping it works,” I mumbled to myself as she trudged away.
I was shuffling through the various papers that had been stuffed in my box when Eli sidled up next to me. Our mailboxes were close together on the same column. Only Kara’s and Mrs. Chan’s separated us alphabetically.
When Nick and I married, my last name changed from Simmons to Carter. I got to upgrade from the end of the mailbox line next to Kara. It had been a great day for both of us. But especially for me. Every once in a while she showed up with Starbucks and a muffin. It was obvious why we were so inseparable.
The best kind of friendships were born and bonded over Starbucks. It happened every day.
“Morning, Ms. Carter,” he said slyly.
I loved the deepness of his voice, the leftover scratchiness of the early morning and the rumble that seemed to hit me in the gut every time he spoke.
“Morning, Mr. Cohen.”
I felt his sideways glance as he took in my appearance. “You lied to me last night.”
His comment caught me so off guard I dropped some of my papers. I swooped down to scoop them up and he followed, squatting just a foot away from me.
“When?” I asked. Fear hit first. What had I said in my drunken stupor? Then disbelief. I didn’t remember lying. I would remember if I lied to him, even if I was drunk.
Right?
“You told me you weren’t going to be pretty this morning.” He handed me some papers he picked up. “That was clearly a lie.”
A blush crept up my neck at the same time my unhappy stomach turned unpleasantly. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or call him out for being cheesy. I settled for wrinkling my nose at him.
His eyes twinkled with humor and he read my mind. “That was lame, huh?”
“It was sweet,” I assured him. “Especially since I don’t feel pretty.”
We stood up and Eli looked around the quiet office. There were teachers near the coffee pot and slumped over in chairs, waiting for the morning to begin, but nobody was really interacting with anybody else. “At least you’re not alone,” he grinned.
“Whose idea was that anyway?”
Eli leaned in conspiratorially, “Tim.”
“Mr. Bunch?” I laughed.
“He suggested it during the fire drill.”
Well, I didn’t blame him there. Fire drills were always a nightmare to survive. Keeping a tab on all of our kids was nearly impossib
le. Hamilton was built right on a busy street in a hub of business activity. Our protocol was to line up on the sidewalk as far from the building as we could, which usually turned into a giant exodus of students as they abandoned the day altogether. And there weren’t enough of us teachers to keep everyone in line.
Shouting, “Make good choices!” while they walked away with their middle fingers waving proudly, never seemed to make much of an impact.
“I can see why there was such a great turnout then.” I hugged my papers to my chest and looked around the room. “Do you think today will be any easier?”
Eli pursed his lips and shook his head. “I wish I could say yes.”
“I wish you could too.”
He turned to me so quickly I took a step back out of surprise. “Hey, can I bring you lunch today?”
Nerves fluttered through me and I hesitated. On one hand, whatever Eli brought me would be better than the granola bar and banana I packed for myself. On the other hand, I was so not feeling up to eating anything other than soda crackers. But maybe by lunch…?
“I promise it will be good,” he coaxed after my hesitation turned into awkward silence. “I owe you one anyway. For Garmans that one time.”
“Oh yeah,” I smiled. “I forgot about that.”
“I’ll bring you something,” he declared. “You’ll love it.”
“Thank you.” I looked up and met his chocolate eyes, letting real gratitude shine through me. “Seriously, thank you. You might just save the day.”
He paused midstride and smiled disarmingly at me. “That’s the goal.”
We parted ways and I headed off to my classroom. I noticed that it was easier to face the day after our pleasant exchange. My stomach didn’t feel quite so violent and my headache had receded to a muted jackhammer.
Either the Tylenol had kicked in or Eli had healing powers on top of his superhero-lunch-bringing skills.
I thought about Eli the entire time I set up for the day. His interest in me was so unexpected. Sure, there had been mild flirting over the last couple years, but it had been harmless. He was just a good-looking guy that liked to have fun and I had been a married woman that liked the attention.
Every Wrong Reason Page 8