Little Secrets(65)
Jesus Christ.
Her armpits are damp from sweat, and the adrenaline seems to have burned off whatever alcohol she had in her system. Her heart is tachycardic, and her throat is screaming for water. An empty water glass sits on the counter beside the fridge, and she presses it against the refrigerator’s water dispenser, filling it to the top.
She pulls out her phone and checks her Instagram to reassure herself that Derek and Marin are still in Whistler. They are. In fact, they’re now at a late dinner. They’re sitting next to each other in a round velvet booth, glasses of red wine in their hands and plates full of steak and vegetables in front of them both. The white tablecloth is sprinkled with some kind of metallic confetti—hearts and flowers, by the looks of it. The caption reads, 20 years down, 40 more to go? Sounds like heaven to me.
They look every inch the glamorous couple they are, and Kenzie feels tears well in her eyes.
It’s not that she didn’t always know he was someone else’s. It’s that she didn’t think she cared until now. It hurts to look at them, knowing the life they have will never be hers.
There’s only one comment so far, as Marin posted the picture only fifteen minutes before, but it’s from an account Kenzie didn’t know even existed.
sebastiansdad76: I love you so much, baby. Cheers to us. Happy anniversary, my love. Here’s to 40 more.
Baby. Derek calls Marin baby. He calls Kenzie babe. She never realized how much of a difference one letter could make in an otherwise generic term of endearment.
Kenzie needs to stop looking at their pictures. She needs to get off Instagram. She needs to get out of their house.
She also needs to pee.
Hell with it. Might as well check out their bathrooms.
The house has been remodeled from top to bottom, and the budding furniture designer in Kenzie can’t help but notice the clean lines and tasteful use of space. What’s not decorated matters as much as what is. The house feels traditional, but with a modern take.
“I grew up in a trailer park,” Derek had told her the first night they slept together. They were at the Cedarbrook Lodge, lying naked, legs intertwined. “We had nothing. Less than nothing. My dad split when I was two, and my mom had three boys to feed, and I was the youngest. Never had new clothes. Never had a new bike. Never had new anything. We were always hungry. There was never enough food.”
“Wow,” Kenzie said, touching his watch. A Rolex. “And look at you now.”
“It’s why I’m so particular about how I live.” Derek took her fingers and kissed the tips of each one. “I like nice clothes. I like having a nice car. I like having cash in my wallet, even if I use my credit cards for everything. I like not being poor, and I guess I have a chip on my shoulder about it.” He was quiet for a moment. “But that chip is what drives me. It’s what got me here.”
“And what got you here?” Kenzie asked, gesturing to the bed, the room, herself.
He rolled on top of her, the length of his naked body pressed up against the length of hers. Automatically, her legs parted. They’d already had sex, but he was ready again. He looked right into her eyes.
“I like that you don’t know that part of me,” Derek said. “I like that you only know me as the person I’ve become, and not the person I used to be. It’s nice to not have history with you.”
She understood that. Completely. She gets what it’s like to want to reinvent yourself, but it’s not always easy, especially when family and old friends take it personally.
“I don’t have twenty years of mistakes with you,” he whispered, and she could feel him sliding into her again. She parted her legs farther, placing her hands on his ass, guiding him as far as he could go. “You’re a blank slate, and you don’t know how much I need that.”
It wouldn’t take a psychologist to understand that Kenzie’s an escape for him. Their relationship has always been highly compartmentalized. When Derek is with her, he doesn’t have to think about his wife, or his missing son, or this house, or any of the things he feels obligated to, and responsible for.
The problem is, it’s near impossible for Kenzie to understand why anyone would want to escape from this. You poor, sad, wealthy man. The house is gorgeous. Ten-foot ceilings, gleaming hardwood floors, light fixtures that probably cost more than her rent.
It even smells like money in here.
She wonders if the bathroom is near the mudroom, but there’s only a laundry room, and it’s the fanciest one she’s ever seen in real life. There’s an oversize washer and dryer, and built-in cabinets for everything unsightly, like detergent, dryer sheets, cleaning products. What a luxury it must be to have a laundry room that isn’t shared with a hundred other tenants, especially one as nice as this one.
In the mudroom, there are three cubbies. They’re labeled with hand-painted wooden signs. The one on the left reads MARIN. The one on the right reads DEREK. And the one in the middle reads SEBASTIAN.
Sebastian. Wow. His coat is still hanging there, his rubber boots lined up neatly beneath it, and in the basket below is a small backpack covered in cartoon dogs. Paw Patrol. She finds herself reaching out to finger his coat, then yanks her hand back. No. She shouldn’t touch it. It wouldn’t be right.
Her bladder threatening to burst, Kenzie exits the mudroom and continues on her self-guided tour, getting lost in imagining what she would decorate differently if she were living here with Derek. Truthfully, not much. Marin has excellent taste.