I leaned over to Brody who was sitting next to me at the table. “Hey,” I whispered. “Grab that last shrimp off your mama’s plate.”
Brody laughed, but he reached over, snatching the piece for me.
“Way to go, Brode-man. We make a good team.” I chomped through the shrimp, holding the tail between my fingers.
“So, Kane Thorson just so happens to be in Helene’s philosophy class. You remember him?” Hilde asked Mark even as she focused on me.
“Oh…” Mark said. “Yeah. I remember him. Saw him a number of months ago.” He looked between Hilde and me nervously for a second. “He asked about you,” Mark said to me. “I mentioned you were teaching at the college.”
Hilde’s eyes bulged. “You didn’t tell me that.”
He shrugged, turning his attention back to me. “You two worked at the gas station together until he…” Mark looked back and forth between the kids. “…unexpectedly departed Hazleton without anyone’s knowledge.”
“Yes,” said Hilde. “Right about the same time you quit the gas station job too if I recall correctly.”
“Yep.” I said, not offering to say more.
“How’s he doing?” asked Mark. “I haven’t seen him since I ran into him a couple of months ago. All I really remember of him from high school is that he was pretty good at getting into trouble. But I still always liked him.”
I shrugged. Acknowledging I’d bailed him out of jail three nights prior was not going to happen—not with my sister sitting there waiting for me to say the wrong thing.
“Why’s he even in town?” Hilde asked.
“His dad had a stroke,” Mark responded. “That’s how I ran into him. I was helping him line up the transfer from the hospital to the care facility.”
That was Mark’s job. He was a care coordinator at Community Memorial hospital. It was a hospital administrator social work type position that Mark was, frankly, perfect for. He was a good man, a caring man.
I nodded. “He’s getting his father’s home in order, so he can put it on the market.”
“And after that?” Hilde eyed me suspiciously.
I shrugged again. I hated Hilde’s inquisitions.
Hilde turned to Mark. “He was at Helene’s house at eight in the morning Wednesday when Sienna and I stopped by.”
“Is that so?” Mark asked as his focus shifted to me.
“He just stopped by,” I lied.
“And yet, he didn’t have a car there, and he left on foot.” Hilde stared at me for a moment. “Odd.”
“Not as odd as your interest in my personal life,” I muttered. “I need to go to the restroom.” I stood from the table, dropping my napkin on my plate, and it wasn’t until I was walking away that the quiet groan of irritation passed my lips.
The restaurant was in one of the old buildings that lined Broad Street, and it was a narrow deep layout. I walked around tables as I headed toward the back of the cavernous room where the restroom sign hung down from the tall ceiling above. When I made it nearly two-thirds of the way there, I had to sidestep a small table for two.
“Sorry,” I said as I skirted past the table.
I made the mistake of glancing down at the couple who I’d just apologized to, and the smile on my lips faded as I stared. Kane’s arm was laid across the table, and a woman’s hand was in his as his thumb slowly stroked over her knuckles. There was a rather garish looking diamond on her left ring finger.
I shook my head in shock at what I was seeing—shocked that he was there, shocked that he was apparently on a date with a woman little more than three days after he’d come onto me in my kitchen, shocked that it was yet another woman from the one he’d clearly been carrying on with earlier in the week, and shocked that the woman he chose to carry on with now appeared to be married. Just shocked.
I stepped back, bumping into the table behind me. “I’m sorry,” I said to the couple sitting there as they looked at me concernedly. “I’m…” My voice trailed off.
When I looked back at Kane, his eyes were wide and startled. He pulled his hand from the woman, and she looked back and forth between us, confusion etched on her pretty face. I walked away then, making a beeline toward the restrooms. The three-stall restroom was vacant, which was a damn good thing, because when I looked in the mirror, my face was red, and I looked furious enough to either yell or simply fall apart into tears.
I turned toward the nearest wall, and I pressed my fingers against it, letting my forehead drop to the ugly wallpaper. When the door was suddenly pushed open, I pulled back. Kane stood in the doorway, watching me, his face still a frozen mask of terror. I didn’t care. I was too angry to care.
“Get out,” I hissed at him.
“I have to talk to you.” He crossed his arms. “Please, talk to me.” He let the door shut behind him, closing us in the restroom together.