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The compliment makes my body feel hotter than it already is in the hot summer night. Someone behind me exits the store, the telltale jingle of the bells and the whoosh of air-conditioning reminding me that I’m supposed to be in and out of this store. Reminding me that Evan isn’t a part of my to-do list tonight.
“I never said you weren’t my type,” I say and my voice comes out sultry, laced with the desire I feel coursing in my blood. I try to hold his gaze, but the fire and intensity swirling in his dark eyes makes me back down.
I can try to be tough all I want, but he’s a bad boy through and through and I should know better.
“Good to know,” he says with a cocky undertone that makes my eyes whip up to his. I half expect him to blow me off now that his ego’s been fed. He licks his lower lip and my eyes are drawn to the motion, imagining how it’d feel to have his lips on every inch of my skin. “Come out with me tonight,” he says. As if I don’t have anything better to do. As if he can just command me to do what he wants.
“Sorry … Evan. I can’t tonight,” I tell him and turn back around, hiking my purse up higher on my shoulder, ready to go about my business.
“Tomorrow night then,” he says, raising his voice so I can hear him as I wrap my hand around the handle and pull the door open. Again the chill of the store greets me, but this time it’s unwanted.
I’m all too aware of what this man could do to me. He’s the type to pin you down as he takes you how he wants you anddoesn’t stop until you’re screaming. And I can’t lie, just that thought alone makes me desperate to say yes.
He takes another step closer as I stand with the door wide open and hesitate to answer. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he manages a shrug as if it’s a casual question.
“Just one date,” he adds as he looks at me with a raised brow and his version of puppy dog eyes. It’s enough to force a smile on my face.
“And what am I supposed to do? Meet you here at ten?” I ask him.
“How about at Jean-Georges in Central Park?” he asks and I’m taken aback. It’s an expensive place and my eyes glance back to his car, to his ripped body and tattooed skin. There’s something about the air that follows him that screams he’s no good. The danger in the way he looks at me is so tempting, though.
“I just want to feed you,” he adds as the time ticks by slowly and a short, older man with salt-and-pepper hair walks out of the exit, stealing our attention and making my hand slip slightly on the handle.
I chew on the inside of my cheek. The answer is an easy one. No. Simple as that. He’s a bad boy who only wants one thing, but I can’t deny that I want it too.
I said yes.
To the date, and then again a year later to marrying him.
That initial yes, pushed through my lips by an undeniable attraction, was my first mistake on a list of too fucking many.
All because I can’t tell him no.
EVAN
Itry to shut the front door softly, as quietly as I can so I don’t wake up Kat if she’s passed out.
I know she told me not to come back. She says a lot of things and then apologizes and changes her mind. Silence isn’t better, though. It still hurts, just in a different way. Our loft is small and the walls are thin so you can hear everything in here. I stop in the foyer, setting down my duffle bag and luggage then toss the bunched-up chenille blanket that’s in a puddle on the floor onto the sofa in the living room.
The room is mostly gray, just like the city. There’s a paned glass mirror above the long sofa and black and white accents everywhere. I hated that mirror from the moment we got it, but Kat loved it so I never said a word. It belongs in some farmhouse up north, not in the heart of New York, the devil’s playground. But it made her smile. I’ll be damned if that isn’t reason enough to keep that cheap-ass mirror.
My eyes scan the room in the faint light from the city that’s shining through the gap in the curtains.
Five years of marriage, six of creating this place together.
Each piece of furniture is a memory. The wine rack that we purchased was the first thing we bought together. The graysofa with removable pillows was a fight I lost. I didn’t want the cushions to be removable, because they always end up sagging, but Kat insisted the brand was quality.
The plush cushions still look like they did in the store, and I wonder if she was right or if it’s just because we don’t even sit on the damn thing. Maybe both but I lean toward the latter.
I’m never here and she’s always working. What’s the point of it?
The bitter thought makes me kick the duffle bag out of my way and head past the living room and dining room, straight to the stairs so I can get to bed and lie down with Kat. It’s been almost a week since I’ve slept in the same room as her and I refuse to let that go on for another night. I pause to look at the photos on the wall, the light streaming in leaving a sunbeam down the glass.
Almost all are in black and white, the way Kat likes her décor. All but one, the largest in the very center. It’s also the only one that’s not staged.
She’s leaning toward me, and her lips look so red as she’s mid-laugh, holding a crystal champagne flute and wrapping her fingers around my forearm. Her eyes are on whoever was giving a speech. I don’t remember who it was or what they said, but I can still hear her laugh. It’s the most beautiful sound.
She was so happy on our wedding day. I thought she’d be stressed and worried, but it was like a weight was lifted and the sweetest version of her was given to me that day. There’s nothing but love in the photo. No work, no bullshit, just the two of us telling the world we loved each other enough to stay together forever.