Elastic Hearts (Hearts #3)(39)

“Let’s just get this over with,” I said, clearing my throat.

When he turned off the car and went around it to open the door for me, smiling for the cameras and laughing at one of their jokes, I closed my eyes and for the millionth time wondered if everything about him had been an act. I hated to belittle what we’d had. I hated to see it as if it were nothing more than a puppet show inside of a light box, especially when my feelings for him had been so real, but it was all I could think when he played the part so well. The sound of the door handle made my eyes pop open. I took his hand as he helped me out of the car and walked beside him, both of us with our heads down as we entered the ice cream shop.

“That wasn’t too bad,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders. Which part? I wanted to ask? The part where you pretended to care about me? The one where you made me fall in love with you, only to leave me high and dry when you decided you missed the single life? I didn’t voice any of it. I knew if I did I would go off on him and the entire charade would blow up in our faces. New York, I reminded myself. Smooth mediation. Painless divorce.

I smiled at Veronica when we got to the front of the line, but instead of smiling back, she kept looking at Gabe while he looked up at the menu. The way she looked at him and ignored me made an uncomfortable feeling settle in the pit of my stomach. That sixth sense women have was as much of a blessing as it was a curse in times like these. My mom used to tell me that men were like puppies. If you didn’t keep them entertained long enough, they’d move on to the next toy. I never liked that idea.

I felt like we made far too many excuses for them just because they had dicks between their legs and we had vaginas, and really, if it’s about anatomy, wouldn’t the channel that they’re birthed from be superior? But alas, women like my mom and Gabe’s mom gave men the okay to be cheaters, and liars, and showed them that it was okay and that they could get away with it. All that aside, I remember when I was little and my parents were married, my mom had a private investigator tail my dad because she needed to know what he was up to when he left work. I didn’t work that way. I always felt like you had to be willing to give a person enough trust to let them make their own choices. What they did with it was a different story.

“Do you want your usual?” Veronica asked, finally looking at me with an uneasy smile.

Gabe looked down at me, flashing me that wide grin that got me to agree to go out with him in the first place. “Cookies ‘n’ Cream?”

I nodded and smiled after a beat, when I remembered to. “In a waffle bowl.”

“Got it,” he said, still looking at me like I was something to be cherished. I hated him for it. I hated myself for even feeling anything at all, though what I felt wasn’t the unrequited love I’d once felt. When he looked at the girl to order, he paused momentarily. A flirt smile bloomed on her face.

“You never called me back,” she said.

I tried to swallow, but it turned into a cough, and soon after, I was slapping my chest and coughing. Gabe patted me in the back, but I jerked out of his touch. She spoke to him as if she had no idea who I was. As if she didn’t know I was married to him. As if I wasn’t wearing the gigantic rock on my finger that he’d given me five years ago. It wasn’t her I was mad at, though. It wasn’t her I’d given my trust to.

My skin began to prickle with a heated rage I hadn’t felt since the day Gabe hit me with an onslaught of insults in the midst of his drug-induced state. I turned around and began to walk away. My idea was to sit down while he waited for the ice cream I could no longer eat, and breathe it out, but Gabe’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“That was a long time ago,” he said.

I kept facing forward, toward the doors, where the paparazzi were still standing, aiming their cameras right at us, capturing the moment. I prided myself in being calm, cool, and collected when I wanted to be. I prided myself in being able to control everything that left my mouth, in being able to reel myself in when I was going too far, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. That was a long time ago? THAT was his excuse?

“It was a long time ago?” I said, seething as I turned to face him. I pushed his hand off me with my other hand. “Long time ago when, Gabriel? When we were f*cking married?”

“Don’t make a scene, Nicole.”

“Don’t make a scene? Are you serious right now?”

“It was nothing serious,” he said, lowering his voice and softening his gaze as if his sudden concern was going to be enough to keep me there.

I pushed back on his chest with both hands and turned around again. “Go f*ck yourself.”

He grabbed me by the wrist, hard, and pulled me back against his chest. His mouth was near my ear. “All we have to do is get out of here with smiles on our faces. That’s all we have to do. I f*cked up. I was a terrible husband. I’m sorry. I am, but doing this isn’t going to solve anything.”

I closed my eyes, surprised by the sudden need to cry. I felt sick. It wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t. I’d heard he was having sex with other women. This wasn’t breaking news, but the heavy and unwanted feeling still settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt myself soften in his hold as I let out a long, deep breath.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I whispered. He let go. I didn’t look at him at all, or in Veronica’s direction as I disappeared down the hall and pulled out my cell phone.