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It was a normal car ride. Why couldn’t Ishake the awful feeling I’d had leaving the conservatory?
Maybe it would be better once I got on thehighway.
* * * *
It did not.
In fact, it didn’t even get better when wearrived at the apartment. We weren’t in bad moods, at least,speaking for myself. And Charlotte was chatty at dinner—aboutanything other than the visit to my mom’s. If that got brought up,she deflected and moved on to something else.
Maybe it was just me, noticing things thatweren’t really happening. Building up catastrophe in my mind. I’ddone it before.
We were in the den, curled up under acashmere throw while we smoked and half-watched a baking show whenI finally couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Hey, did somebody do something to upset youat the house today?” I asked.
She went very still.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” I took the nearlyburned roach and stubbed it out. “Who was it?”
“What, are you going to beat up the kids whowere mean to me?” She gave me a playful sidelong look.
“No. Like I said, I’ll buy whatever theylove.” I’d done it before. “I came very close to buying the Rangersjust to ruin them for my ex.”
“Okay, I don’t know what that is—”
“A hockey team.”
“—but nobody was mean to me. I overheardsomething…” Her face scrunched up. “Fuck, this is difficult to tellyou.”
“You can tell me anything.” She could tellme she was a serial killer, and I’d rationalize it awaysomehow.
Probably wasn’t healthy, but I would dealwith that later.
“No, I can’t because you’re going to be asangry as I was. More angry, probably.” She paused. “Yeah. You’redefinitely going to be angrier than I was. I have to tell you thisthing that’s going to create so many problems, and I have to do itbecause we want to be honest with each other, right?”
“Yeah, dishonesty is a deal breaker. Kindaconcerned that you had to check…”
She rolled her eyes. “What I’m saying is,things would be so much easier for us if I didn’t tell you what Ioverheard.”
“I think things would be easier for us if Iwasn’t walking around with this mystery in my head for the rest ofour lives.” In fact, I would probably spiral to the worst possibleconclusion within the next half hour. “Is it something that’s goingto make me love you less?”
“I hope not,” she said.
“Is it something that will prevent us frombeing together?” A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck.“Fuck, you didn’t find out we’re related, did you?”
“No, nothing like that. But… It might affectour relationship, yeah.” Her eyes glazed with tears. “And I don’twant that to happen.”
I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat.“I don’t want that to happen either. So, let’s make sure itdoesn’t.”
She nodded glumly, took a deep breath, andsaid, “Remember how we were trying to figure out who your sister ischeating on her husband with?”
“Yes?” I couldn’t imagine that the answerwould have anything to do with my relationship to Charlotte.
“It’s Scott.”
Okay, maybe that.
But it couldn’t be Scott. That didn’t makeany sense. “Wait, he was with me the whole time you were in thebathroom. It couldn’t have been. Unless he teleported.”