Page 22

Chapter 21

Annette

W aking up, I was overwhelmed by Terry’s spicy cologne. Then I realized why I felt like I was being bathed in the stuff. I was in his bedroom.

And I had the worst hangover ever.

The last thing I remember was talking to Terry about something on the couch. He must have carried me upstairs and took me to bed.

God, please don’t tell me I slept with him.

I pushed myself up, trying to get my bearings.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. As a mom, it always raised my hackles. I didn’t care if Terry was a great dad. I needed to know what my son was doing and that he wasn’t hurt or up to mischief.

As I sat up, I noticed there was a note on the nightstand. I picked it up.

My Love,

Before you freak out, read the whole note.

I took Eric to the trampoline park. Walter got a walk and doesn’t need to go for a bit. Since I know most of the guys are your clients, I dropped in the group chat that you might be starting late. But I couldn’t do anything if you had a non-Legacy client, so hopefully, you wake up in time.

Your phone is all charged up.

We didn’t have sex. But I did have to help hold your hair a couple of times. Don’t worry, it’s all good. You always missed me.

We made a pancake feast this morning. I made a few extra ones just for you. I left them in the microwave. The toppings are all over the place. DO NOT clean it up. I will do it when we get back.

If you need medicine, just look behind the mirrors in either bathroom.

Only Terry would write a note basically in bullet points. His thoughtfulness and cheekiness were crazy. Only he would mention if I accidentally threw up on him. I wasn’t worried about that until he mentioned it.

It was weird to see him call me his love. He hadn’t used that term in so long. I wondered if he still meant it, and what the fuck did we talk about last night? It was the only thing I could think of for him to have that switch of heart.

I went to my bedroom and changed out of the T-shirt and into my clothes. However, I realized the shirt was way too large, and it was a wine color. Terry must have changed my shirt at some point, but given the fact that my bra was still on, I was sure he only changed it after I vomited on my original one.

If we’d done anything sexual, Terry was too much of a boob guy to leave my bra on. Back in high school, he used to routinely break my bra just so he had easier access to my boobs.

I changed into another mom-friendly set of clothes: yoga pants and a plum Henley. Then, I looked in the mirror and noticed my hair was actually still being well-controlled in the low ponytail. I wrapped it into a bun and used a scrunchie to secure it.

Going downstairs, I realized he wasn’t kidding when he said there was a mess of pancake debris all over the counters. I swore he and Eric must have had a powdered sugar fight with the amount of powder residue that was all around the kitchen.

As I waited for the pancakes to reheat, I took a damp washcloth and wiped off the area. I didn’t care if he offered to clean it up. I couldn’t live with it being such a mess. Besides, focusing on cleaning actually helped with the pounding headache.

Not wanting to drink another water laced with electrolytes, I grabbed one of Eric’s Gatorades.

I saw there were syrup containers similar to the ones in Terry’s sex bin. Scared that Terry shared something he shouldn’t have, I went to the pantry and looked at the upper shelf. All his food-related sex toys were still in their hiding spot, so he really did have duplicates of everything.

Then I got a terrible thought that he made pancakes whenever he had a girl sleepover at his place.

No wonder Natalie thought I might be the person Terry was sleeping with.