The Friendship List(86)

He turned to his daughter. “Your best defense might be staying quiet right now.”

“Whatever.” She flounced onto the bus.

Ellen watched her go. “I’m sorry.”

“So you said.”

She looked at him. “I mean it. Keith, I know this is shocking. I went through it myself. But there was no way to tell you while we were still on a bus. It would have been hideous for everyone.”

“I trusted you.”

“We were on the road. There was nowhere for Luka to hide.” Her voice was pleading. “Keith, you have to see that.”

“Do I?” His anger grew as a sense of betrayal fueled it. “We’re supposed to be friends. There is nothing I care about in this life more than my daughter. You have Coop. I thought you’d get it. But you didn’t. How can I ever trust you again?”

Tears filled Ellen’s eyes. “Don’t say that. Please. I wanted to tell you.”

“Did you? Because it’s hard to tell that from your actions.”

She reached for him. He sidestepped her touch and watched her arm fall to her side.

“I want to explain.”

“Now you want to talk.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you did this, Ellen. It’s unforgivable.”

With that, he walked onto the bus, closed the door in her face and drove away. The last thing he saw was Ellen standing alone in the parking lot, tears streaming down her face, her and Coop’s luggage piled at her feet.

  Ellen stood in the hot parking lot, not sure how her life had gone from amazing to sucky in a single conversation, but it had. Desperate sobs clawed at her, making it hard to breathe. She’d screwed up—she got that—but the punishment didn’t seem to fit the crime.

About five minutes after the bus had pulled out, literally leaving her in the dust, Unity drove up in Ellen’s Subaru. Her friend got out, took one look at her and held open her arms. Ellen ran to her.

“Everything went wrong,” she said, crying harder, knowing she was a mess and not sure how to make it better.

“We can fix it,” Unity told her, hanging on tight.

“You don’t know that.”

“I bought wine.”

“Then I guess we’ll be okay.”

Ellen stood back and wiped her nose. They collected all the luggage and threw it in the back of her car, then Unity drove them to Ellen’s place. Within a few minutes, the suitcases were unloaded. Ellen tossed Coop’s into his room and set hers by her closet. By the time she got to the kitchen, she saw Unity had already piled the mail she’d collected on the counter and had set out food for dinner. There were four different deli sandwiches, a couple of salads, a pitcher of ice water and an open bottle of red wine. The table was set and there was a box of tissues in the center.

Ellen looked from the table to her friend and fought against yet more tears.

“I screwed up so bad,” she admitted.

“I doubt that.”

“Keith hates me.”

Unity smiled. “I doubt that even more. You’ve been having the sex.”

Ellen thought about how wonderful things had been, how she’d loved being with Keith, how he made everything fun and sexy and right and now he was mad at her.

Tears returned, as did Unity’s warm hug.

“Come sit down and tell me everything. There’s a second bottle of wine right here and I don’t have anywhere to be. Not until I go hunt down your kid.”

Ellen nodded, then grabbed a couple of tissues and blew her nose. “He took off rather than face the reality of Keith finding out about Luka and Lissa. I’m sure he’s with his friend now. There are going to be words and consequences for sure.”

They sat at the kitchen table. Unity squeezed her hand, then poured them each a glass of wine. “All right. Start at the beginning. You were sitting on the bus, thinking Keith looked really hot and then what?”

Despite everything, Ellen managed a shaky smile. “It wasn’t exactly like that. And you know most of it. But I’ll start at the beginning.”

Over the next half hour and a bottle of wine, Ellen explained about how things had gotten started with Keith and about Coop wanting to spend a couple of weeks with his dad and how she’d stumbled upon Lissa in bed with Luka.

“It all got really messed up then,” she said with a sigh. “I couldn’t tell him what had been happening.”

Unity rolled her eyes. “Of course not. You were on a bus. You had to think about the other kids. Keith would have killed Luka.”

“Or worse. I know I couldn’t say anything, but now he’s furious and I don’t like how that feels.”

“Because you care about him.”

“Yes. He’s my friend.”

Unity raised her eyebrows.

Ellen shook her head. “It’s not more than that, I swear. It can’t be. We’re friends.”

“You said that already.”

“Good friends.”

“Who have a lot of sex.”

“That part’s really nice. He’s so sweet to me. We’ve tried all kinds of things that I never thought of doing. When he touches me...” She reached for her glass of wine. “But what if he stays mad at me forever?”

“When has Keith ever done that?”