CHAPTER 8
It was not even five o’clock when I pulled up in front of the condo that Ian and I had shared. His Mustang was in the driveway. What the hell did he do these days? Did he even have a job? My guess was that he was blowing through the money he got from the sale of his half of the club. It was kind of sad.
I hoped that he was sober. I needed some information from him. He was an ugly drunk so hopefully the more sober I caught him, the more cooperative he would be.
I rang the bell a couple of times before he answered. He was surprised to see me. As near as I could tell, it was a ‘sober’ surprise. He was dressed, shaved, and looked presentable.
“Giner? Bloody hell. What do you want?”
“Ian, can I have five minutes of your time?”
He looked beyond me warily; he was trying to see if Tristan was lurking behind the bushes, apparently. How paranoid was that?
“It’s just me, Ian. No one is with me, for Chrissake.”
“Yeah - come on in,” he relented.
I followed him inside, taking a seat on an obvious second-hand plaid sofa. He looked over at me expectantly.
“Ian, do you remember talking to a very attractive brunette at the club a month or so ago? Mid-thirties, dark eyes -”
“Big, perky tits?” he finished for me. “Of course, I remember Amber. What the hell? I’m not eighty.”
“I know, I know; it’s just that you’re drunk most of the time, so I never know how your sense of recall is affected.”
“Look, if you came here to fucking insult me you can get the hell out of here right now!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just need to know what she talked to you about.”
“Why?”
(Holy shit! Why did I think Ian would cooperate? Even if he did offer information, how would I know if it was the truth or not? He wasn’t exactly in my court on this. I had to give him a reason not to lie.)
“It’s just that I went out to visit Tylar today. She mentioned that Trey is spending a lot of time with Amber. She’s a new partner in the law firm. Anyway, while I was there, Trey and Amber came to the house. I guess they are working a lot of late hours at Trey and Tylar’s. Amber somehow knew that you and I were divorced.”
“So?”
“So I just wondered if, during your conversation with her, she mentioned anything much about Trey. I think Tylar has concerns that Amber might be trying to hit on him, you know?”
“I don’t know anything about that. She mentioned Trey in passing a couple of times, but actually she seemed more interested in Tristan.”
(There it was! I needed to act surprised.)
“Tristan? How would she know Tristan?”
“Sorry, love. I didn’t press her on the details. He’s not one of my favorite people, as you know. She was just going on about his big dick; said something about a birthmark, too. That caught me funny. What’s the story on that?”
(I have no clue about any birthmark . . .)
“What? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen his bum, Giner?”
“I’m not going to share private information with you like that, Ian.”
“Hah, you don’t even know about it. I can tell. Well, next time you and King Stud are in the sack, roll him on his belly and look for a small birthmark on one of his bum cheeks; looks like a devil’s fork, according to Amber.”
“Whatever Ian; I came here to see what you knew about Amber and Trey. Obviously, you are still hell bent on making everything about Tristan.”
I got up and headed for the door. Ian was beside me in an instant.
“Hey - you asked me what she talked about and I gave you the truth, Giner. She may be interested in Trey, she seems kinky that way, but she talked more about Tristan. That’s how she knew we used to be married. I shared my opinion of Tristan with her; I told her that my ex was involved with him. Trust me; I don’t bring either of your names up when I’m in the company of a beautiful babe. It can be a mood killer. She is the one who brought it up. I just gave my opinion.”
“Thanks Ian,” I said as I walked out of the condo. “Take care.”
I tried to process the information on my way back to our apartment. What the hell was that all about? I wouldn’t believe that Tristan had lied to me. As much as it was killing me, I simply had to bide my time and see what developed. I wasn’t going to stir the pot until I had objective evidence that Tristan had lied about being with anyone other than me. I had no clue how long Amber had been in Atlanta.
I thought back to Tylar’s ramblings about her. I wanted to kick myself in the ass for not paying more attention to her. She had mentioned something about Amber going to Stanford Law School. That was in northern California, I was pretty sure. What significance did that offer? Northern California was a huge area, in and of itself. Perhaps my best bet was to find a way to bring up the topic of Amber to Tristan. Yes, that would allow me to gauge his reaction.
Tristan was already home when I got there. He was stretched out on the sofa with ESPN blaring.
“Hey babe,” he said as I came into the living room. “Where you been?”
“I went out and visited Tylar as you suggested.”
“Great. How’d it go?”
“Well, actually I got a bit shitty with her.”
He cocked his eyebrow, waiting for me to continue.
“It’s just that she started on about feeling sick, rambling on about some law partner of Trey’s, and then wanting to make sure we didn’t have the same boy’s name picked out for our babies. It rubbed me wrong, that’s all.”
“Well how did you leave it?”
“Kind of up in the air, I guess. We were interrupted when Trey came home from work. He brought that new partner with him. I think her name is Amber. Have you met her?”
(Watching him closely; looking to read his expression at the mention of her name. Nothing.)
“Not really,” he said, “She’s been in the club a couple of times with Trey and some of the other lawyers at the firm for happy hour. That’s about the extent of it. Is Tylar upset about her or something?”
“Oh you know; it’s likely just pregnancy hormones at work. She’s certain that Amber is out for Trey.”
“Well as far as I could tell, nothing stood out to me while they were there. She seemed to be getting equal attention from all the lawyers at the table. Tylar needs to calm down; she doesn’t need to be getting herself out of sorts right now.”
(Exactly. Thank you, Tristan!)
“Hey,” I said, smacking his leg so that he would scoot over. “How about we snuggle for a little bit? I missed you today.”
“I missed you too, sweet baby.”