Part of Your World(27)
He blinked at me, and I had to laugh. He had a pink lipstick kiss on his forehead.
I smiled and flipped his ears back and let out a long breath. “How you think we did, buddy? Think she’ll call us?”
He looked over at me, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
Then I noticed my black hoodie was missing from the hook by the front door.
Chapter 12
Alexis
I was on a run with my next-door neighbor, Jessica, on the trails by our house. I’d gotten home from Daniel’s a few hours earlier. My friend Jessica was forty-five and statuesque. She was an OB-GYN at Royaume Northwestern and married to a lawyer named Marcus.
She hated him.
“How can you tell when it’s time to put salt in the water softener?” I asked.
“My hair tells me,” she said flatly. Jessica was always a little crabby.
“What?”
“When my hair stops feeling soft, I know the thing’s out of salt. Why?”
“I have to do it now that Neil’s gone.”
“I’ll come over and show you. I’m the one who does it at my house. Heaven forbid Marcus lift a finger.” She checked her watch. “So where were you?” she asked. “You missed bunco at Gabby’s last night.”
“I know,” I said. “I was out of town.”
She looked straight ahead. “If you’re getting work done, I want to know where.”
“What?”
“New York? L.A.? You’re glowing. Was it that new light therapy? A peel? Don’t be selfish, we share this information.”
“I didn’t get work done.”
She looked over at me and studied the side of my face. “Okay. Then where were you?”
I went quiet for a second. Mostly because her legs were longer than mine, and I had to run harder to keep up and I couldn’t talk through it like she could. But also because I needed to gather my thoughts.
I’d called Jessica because between her and Gabby, she was the one who’d be the most receptive to what I was doing with Daniel. And I was going to have to tell them eventually.
My neighbors saw everything.
Everything.
They watched their security cameras from their phones at work like it was their favorite channel.
If I came home late—or not at all—it was only a matter of time until they noticed. And I’d rather get ahead of it. Especially because I was pretty sure this Daniel thing was going to keep being a thing. Not a serious thing. Not a forever thing. But definitely a frequent thing, at least for now.
I liked him. He was fun. And the sex had been even better this time, if that was possible.
I didn’t stay for breakfast.
There was only one diner in town, and I didn’t want to advertise the whole “Hey! I woke up here! With him! We had sex!” thing that would be very obvious if we’d shown up together. We weren’t dating—this was a fling. We didn’t need to let everyone know about it.
“I was at a guy’s house last night,” I said finally.
Jessica stopped running. “Well?” she said, not looking in the least bit surprised. “Who is he?”
I put my hands on my hips, catching my breath. “I met him a week ago. I’ve seen him twice. I’m going to keep seeing him, I think.”
“Okay.” She looked at her heart rate on her Fitbit. “And where’d you meet?”
I pulled out my water bottle and took a drink. “I met him after the funeral last week, driving through his town.”
“Have you told Gabby?”
I shook my head. “No. Not yet. You can tell her if you want. It’s not really a big deal. I just figured I should tell you guys before you start to notice me not coming home at night.”
“Does Neil know?”
“Nope,” I said, making a popping noise on the P.
“Good,” she said dryly. “Get all your rage sex out of your system and then you two can get back together with an even score.”
My smile fell. “Jessica, I’m not getting back with him. Ever.”
“Uh-huh,” she said dismissively, stretching her hamstring.
“Jessica…”
I gave myself a long moment.
“Do you know what he used to do?” I asked, looking over at her. “He used to tell me I smelled bad.”
She wrinkled her forehead at me. “What?”
“Right before we’d walk into a party or a restaurant or something he’d lean in and go, ‘Did you take a shower today?’ And you know me. I’m compulsively clean. I’d be half an hour out of a bubble bath, and he’d wrinkle his nose and tell me my deodorant wasn’t working. I’d go to kiss him, and he’d turn his face and ask me if I’d had onions for dessert.”
“You don’t smell,” she said. “I would tell you.”
“Yeah, well, I was so freaked about it, I had Bri give me a full physical to see if something was wrong. Came back with nothing. I went to the dentist to see if I had an issue with my mouth, same thing, nothing.
“He wouldn’t touch me or kiss me. I was taking three, four showers a day at the end, brushing my teeth constantly. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And you know what my therapist said? She said it’s a form of abuse. That he was purposely lowering my self-esteem.”