Little Secrets(33)

He’s not that guy anymore. Six months of lying and sneaking around has changed him. But she can’t get too upset about it, because it’s changed her, too. Kenzie used to be in control, but now it feels like he’s slipping away. Going to a hotel tonight might have been his idea, but she’s not stupid. There’s a big difference between a man who genuinely wants to be with her, and a man who just doesn’t want to go home.

“Everything okay?” she asks when he puts down his phone.

“All good.” But he’s not smiling, and Kenzie doesn’t know if it’s because of his phone, or because of her. She won’t ask; they don’t do that. They don’t check in on each other emotionally. They don’t go deep. That’s never been part of their MO, even though she’s tried. Instead, he looks at the food in front of him and frowns. He opens the box for his burger, and his scowl deepens. “I said Quarter Pounder.”

“You said Big Mac.” She knows he said Big Mac. She knows he said Big Mac because she remembers that when he said it, she thought to herself, But you normally get a Quarter Pounder. She is confident in her correctness, and she can see from the shifting look in his eyes that he’s wondering if that is actually what he said. But Derek hates to be wrong, and he’s the king of doubling down, and so he’s going to deny he said Big Mac until it ruins their night together.

“When have I ever eaten a Big Mac?” he says, but his conviction is wavering. He’s staring at Kenzie like she’s supposed to know the answer. She gets that he’s tired from driving back from Portland all afternoon, but she offered to drive to the hotel when he picked her up, and he insisted he was fine. What they both know is that he doesn’t want her driving his precious Maserati. If he won’t let her put her (clean) socked feet up on his dashboard, he’s sure as shit not going to let her behind the wheel of his obnoxiously expensive sports car. Derek thinks the Maserati excites her, and it did at first. But it also makes him look like a douche.

And guess what? He’s not the only one who’s tired. She was on her feet all morning serving customers at the Green Bean until Marin Machado walked in, looking like she wanted to rip Kenzie’s throat open with her perfect teeth, all the while still managing to look classy and completely fabulous.

Kenzie knows who Derek’s wife is. Of course she does.

It had taken everything in her not to react, to pretend her lover’s wife was just another customer, and she credits her performance to the drama elective she took during undergrad in Idaho. If there were an award for Best Coffee Shop Actress, Kenzie would have won it. It was excruciating wondering if Marin was going to reach over the counter and strangle her, or start screaming obscenities and threats in front of her coworkers and a shop packed with customers. Kenzie even approached her later with a coffee refill to give her the chance to do just that—figuring they could get it over with, and at least she’d be somewhat prepared—but Marin had said nothing. She’d simply sat in the corner and watched her work, staring at Kenzie like she was a bug she wanted to squash under her Jimmy Choos.

Kenzie’s seen Marin in photos. They’re all over the web, in magazines, on charity event pages, in beauty articles, and Derek’s wife keeps active Facebook and Instagram pages for both work and her personal life. But Marin Machado, in person, is on a whole different level. For one, she looks like Salma Hayek (whose hair she’s worked on before, according to InStyle). She has bedroom eyes, all tits and ass and a tiny waist, designer clothes clinging to her in all the right spots. When Marin stood facing her at the counter, Kenzie felt gangly and awkward, like a tween who hasn’t filled out yet, too tall and too skinny, and in desperate need of a makeover. Marin Machado is soft and full where Kenzie is angles and flat, and they could not be more physically different if they tried.

It’s why she sent Derek the nude selfie. She needed reassurance.

Marin Machado is smart. Successful. She runs her own business with those three salons and her team of women who all seem to adore her. She’s self-made and she gives back to the community and her hashtags are always #girlboss and #womanowned and #empowerwomen and she’s pretty much everything Kenzie would want to be when she grows up.

She can’t imagine what the woman’s deal is. Marin obviously knows who Kenzie is. But there was no confrontation, and she clearly hasn’t said anything to Derek, because if she had, no way would Kenzie be here with him right now.

Derek still isn’t speaking, so she continues to think about Marin as she eats her French fries. Seeing his wife in person explains a lot. Everybody looks good in their Instagram photos, thanks to filters and Facetune. Seeing someone in real life, however, is different. Derek must think Kenzie is a hot mess most of the time, compared to his put-together wife. She’d rushed home after work to take a quick shower, and Derek had grimaced when he saw her.

“It can’t take that long to dry your hair,” he said.

“I air-dry most days.”

He reached into the back seat for his gym bag, rifling through it until he found a microfiber towel. “Lean forward,” he said, and when she did, he draped it over the leather seat.

“My hair is cleaner than your towel,” she said.

“My seats are worth more than your hair.”

She had no response for that. She’s betting a woman like Marin would never leave the house with wet hair, or with anything less than five cosmetic products on her face.