Page 41

CHAPTER 40

THE VESSEL

CASS

W orry slithers through me when I hear Wilder say, “What the fuck do you want?”

I slide off my stool and walk toward the door, freezing when I hear the response.

“Is Cass here?” Davis demands from the other side of the threshold. As if he has any right to demand anything, least of all here.

“None of your fucking business where she is.”

“Her mom said she’s here. I just need to?—”

“You just need to get the fuck off my porch,” Wilder growls, and I touch his arm to draw his attention. His eyes snap to mine.

“It’s okay,” I promise. I can handle myself, I tell him with the power of my brain. He seems to hear me and shifts out of the way, but he’s tight as a bow string, looming behind me when I turn around to face Davis.

For a split second, I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut, the sight of him leaving me reeling. My life, for that strange second, feels split, and I’m two people. One belonged to him.

The other one is Wilder’s. She always has been.

I fold my arms across my chest and glare at my ex, who looks resplendent standing there like he has any business on my front porch. His dark hair is perfectly messy, his face composed of beautiful lines and planes of perfect symmetry. His brows are pinched together in an expression that could only be read as betrayal.

Him. Betrayed by me.

The audacity strikes a match in me.

“What the fuck do you want?” I echo Wilder.

The hurt on his face deepens, joined by a slight flush of his cheeks. He glances at his shoes and scratches the back of his neck. There’s something under his arm, a folio of some kind.

He doesn’t seem to know what to say.

“Speak up or fuck off,” Wilder says from behind me, and I turn to give him a look before shooing him away.

“I’ll be fine,” I whisper, tilting my head in the hopes that he’ll kiss me. Wary, he does, and then I step outside and close the screen door behind me.

Davis backs up to give me room, putting him at the top of the stairs.

“So, how was our honeymoon?” I ask, my anger simmering, blood roiling at the nerve this man has to show up like this.

At least he has the decency to look ashamed. He puts up his hands, his eyes tortured, which shouldn’t spark a little glee, but here we are. “Please. Can we just have a conversation?”

“We did. After our wedding. ”

“I know. But…please, Cass. Five minutes.”

I glare at him, my nostrils flaring when I exhale. “Fine.”

He nods, glances down. Shakes his head.

On paper, Davis is a douchebro trust fund baby. Entitled and thoughtless, lying so he can have everything he wants at the expense of anyone he needs to get what he wants. And those things are true.

The problem with Davis is that while he is the villainous rich boy we’ve been talking shit about for months, he’s faceted with a gentle nature, a soft soul, oblivious to his entitlement, blind to all the ways he quietly manipulated me over the years. Clueless about disregarding what I wanted, what I needed, in favor of what he wanted. He somehow had no idea he did it.

Until it went up in flames, I didn’t either.

We never fought, not until the wedding. And until Wilder, I believe he loved me. Or at least he believed he loved me.

I know better now. I’ve been loved better now.

He still hasn’t spoken. Now that he has the floor, he doesn’t seem to know what to say.

“Davis.”

He sighs, shakes his head. “I just, I thought about what I’d say the whole way, here. But now that I’m standing in front of you I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. I put you through so much. You know, when all this started, when we first met, I didn’t…I just didn’t realize how important you’d become to me. I didn’t realize I’d love you like I did.”

The scoff I scoff shakes the shingles.

“And the lie just kept going and going and got bigger and bigger until I was caught in it. There was no way out. I just had to try and keep up the pretense, because if one card fell, the whole thing would come down.”

I brush away the feeling that I understand the situation, because I’m in a house of cards of my own.

“How could I tell you after all that time? Dad pressured me to get married, and it made you so happy, and I…” He looks miserable. Good. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I lied. I wish I’d been braver. More like you. If I had, maybe?—”

“Maybe you would have only lied to me for a year instead of ten? Davis, you had plans to lie and cheat and disrespect me for the rest of our lives whether you meant to or not. There is nothing you can do to make what you did right. So if you came here for absolution, you’re shit out of luck.”

The way he looks at me, his face tight with emotion and longing and sorrow, cuts to the bone. Because it’s honest. Which makes it so much worse when he says, “I loved you, you know. I loved both of you.”

“But you only lied to me.” It takes all of my control to keep my voice steady. “What do you want, Davis?”

He swallows and looks up. But before his gaze reaches my eyes, it catches my left hand and the ring that now lives there. He blinks.

“What is that?” On his face, again, is betrayal.

The sight kicks over that hot, boiling pot in my chest, spilling the contents all over me. There’s not an inch that isn’t furious.

He won’t even let me have betrayal for myself. He has to take that too.

“What, this ?” I hold up my left hand and wiggle the offending fingers. “Oh, it’s just my new none of your fucking business . What do you want, Davis?”

“You’re engaged?” He says it like a curse.

“No, she’s married, motherfucker,” Wilder yells from inside. “To me.”

I turn to give him another look through the screen door. He puts his hands up in surrender and turns in the direction of the kitchen, but I very much doubt he’s gone. The comfort empowers me.

Davis is gaping. “Married? To him ?”

“He didn’t stutter, did he?” I note. “My mom didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

I almost laugh at the knowledge that she set him up, sending him here unaware to find out while Wilder was present. She probably wanted to see him punched in the nose just as much as Wilder wanted to be the one who throws the punch.

“It’s actually a funny story. See, I never told you about how when we were eighteen, we got married in Vegas, just for one night.”

He’s stunned silent. I am thrilled.

“I mean, it was only supposed to be for one night, but the annulment paperwork was never filed. Good thing you and I didn’t work out. I was already married to Wilder and I have been this whole time.”

Davis shakes his head and I watch him trying to puzzle it out, trying to understand. “You…you knew?”

“What if I did? What if this whole time, you were fucking Henry and I was literally married to someone else? How would that make you feel?”

“Did you know?” he asks darkly.

I consider saying yes, but I won’t lie to him as easily as he did to me. “No. I didn’t know,” I concede.

“So, what,” he sputters, “you found out and figured why not?”

“It was a little more complicated than that, but that’s the gist. The rest of it is, again, none of your fucking business. I’m married to Wilder and you’re with Henry and who fucking cares what else? Now tell me why you’re here instead of calling or emailing or sending a carrier pigeon or something?”

“You blocked me everywhere.”

“So call my mom.”

“She blocked me too.”

I sigh, shifting to my other hip, staring at him while I wait.

After a second, he seems to remember himself. “I, uh, well, I need you to sign these papers to take you off the lease.”

“Great. Awesome. No prob.” I extend my hand for whatever he needs.

He takes the papers out of the folio and sets them on top, then hands the stack over. A pen from his pocket follows.

I grip the folio and sign the first page, saying, “I don’t know why you didn’t just buy a place like you buy everything else.”

A huff. “You know I’m waiting on a place in that development by the—you know what? It doesn’t matter. Henry can’t get his key fob and parking spot until you’re off the lease.”

My pen stops mid loop on the second page, then scribbles out the rest of my signature in an illegible, angry doodle. “Wouldn’t want Henry to have to park on the street.” I shove the folio and papers at him, but the pen is gripped in my fist like an ice pick. “Well, thanks for stopping by to remind me about all the lying and cheating and whatnot. Oh, the whole part where you wanted me to forgive you so you can sleep at night was a nice touch. Somehow, you can still surprise me. It’s been nice reliving it all.”

He glares, angry and hurt. “Well, you seem to have gotten over it just fine.”

A bitter laugh cracks out of me. “Fuck you.”

Davis stands up a little straighter, his beautiful jaw set in determination and voice hard. “In the church that day, you told me I ruined your life, that I left you with nothing. You said my life became your life and you couldn’t have the things you wanted. Right?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with?—”

“And then you move back here, get married. To him . Live in his house. You poured yourself into someone else’s life again. You don’t want to lose yourself? You want to blame me ? Maybe that’s just what you do. Maybe you’re empty. Maybe you need someone else’s life to latch onto and feed off of, to fill you up. To give you someone to blame when it all goes to shit.”

I recoil, taking half a step back and a gasp that holds no oxygen, my chest in a vice and tears pricking my nose and eyes. The words are dry, cruel.

What’s worse? They’re true.

Wilder busts out the front door, nostrils flared like a bull as he charges toward Davis. Shock registers on Davis’s face only a second before Wilder has him by the front of his jacket, his muscles popping.

It’s in this moment that I’m certain Wilder is going to kill him.

“I think my wife has put up with you long enough,” he grinds out. “Anything I can help you with?”

“I-I?—”

His fists tighten, his forehead drawing closer to Davis’s. “Like a bruised kidney maybe? A broken nose? Or I could do everyone a favor and send you back to that lying sack of shit with two black eyes? Say the word, because I’ve been itching to fuck you up since the second you stepped foot in this town. Give me a reason. Gimme one. Good. Reason. ”

Davis’s mouth gapes like a trout, opening and closing.

I realize then that Wilder has Davis up on his toes—Wilder lowers him to the ground and roughly smooths out his jacket. “How about I tell you the best way to get the fuck outta my town, starting with directions off my porch. See, it starts with you getting in that fancy fucking car and driving east. When you hit the ocean, keep going.”

Wilder claps him on the back so hard, Davis almost falls down the stairs. Instead, he sort of stumbles down them backward.

Wilder waves, smiling like he’s psychotic as he says, “Thanks for stopping by. Never fucking come back or I won’t kid around. I’ll just put you straight in the hospital.”

Davis swallows hard, but he’s shaking his head like we’re crazy. Wilder backs up so he’s standing directly in front of me, his body tense. I peer around his arm to watch Davis drive away.

Wilder doesn’t turn around until the car is out of sight. When he does, his face is bent with concern.

“Are you okay?”

I nod, tears threatening again. “Can I have a hug?” My voice wobbles, but he’s the one who breaks, wrapping me up in his arms to rock me gently.

“You never have to ask, Cass. I’m always here.”

But that’s when my tears begin to fall.

Because that might be part of my problem.

Davis was right, and he doesn’t even know the half of it. I stepped into Wilder’s life, moved into his house, agreed to be married to him, became a stepmom to his daughter. I adopted their schedules, their needs, their emotions—I took it all on. They filled up the empty vessel so suddenly, with so much , that there’s no room left for me.

It might be too late. I’m in too deep to turn back.

But I don’t know if there will be anything left of me when it’s all said and done.