“Please tell me you’re lying.”
“I am not.” She said each word slowly, with overlong vowels. The drink was kicking in. Her face was softer, and the sweatshirt had fallen off one shoulder. It drew his gaze to a small freckle on her collarbone. He slid the sleeve back up into place, careful not to touch her skin.
“I miss sugar,” she said. “And bread.”
“There’s a gas station down the street. I could grab a Tastykake.”
“You don’t have a car.”
“It’s not that far. I can walk.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
He didn’t know how to answer. Because she looked as lonely as he felt? He also wanted to impress her. She’d put him in some exceptional category of “beautiful men” who were worth her time, and he felt a sudden need to live up to the designation. “You seem like you’re having a rough night.”
She looked away and started chugging her drink. “Have you ever been in love?”
The question surprised him, and he answered “No” too quickly, before he could think. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Do you want to fall in love?” Rachel asked.
“Maybe,” he said cautiously, because a simple yes felt too small for the conversation. She was so intense and focused on his answer that it was stifling. “Eventually. When it feels right.”
“It always feels right,” Rachel said. Her dreamy smile burrowed into his chest and slid inside a dozen places it probably shouldn’t. “It feels perfect. And you can’t imagine loving anyone else. Or even arguing. Or being cruel.”
“But there’s no such thing as perfect.”
“Yes, there is. There are some truly perfect things in this world.” She tried to prop her elbow on her knee, and nearly toppled over. He moved to steady her, but she righted herself like nothing happened. “A martini at the Savoy. The Velvet Rope album. That fraction of a second before a first kiss, when you realize it’s finally going to happen.” She tugged his sweatshirt over her knees. “Those things are perfect. It’s people who are flawed.”
It made him think about Inez. It was scary to think he could have lost the love of his life already because he wasn’t paying attention. “Was it perfect for you? With your husband?”
She ducked her head and started maneuvering the sweatshirt until her hands disappeared inside the sleeves. “At first. Then it became unpaid labor.”
He thought about that pre-K press conference he’d watched. How her expression never changed, even when her own husband referred to her as an example of the “traumatic toll of marginalization in America.” It must have taken a lot of willpower to remain stoic while being used as institutional racism exhibit A.
“People say marriage is hard.”
She smirked, like he’d told a joke. “But they never tell you how it’s hard. It’s always a rug being pulled from under you.” They locked eyes briefly before hers slid away. That’s when it clicked. This wasn’t just marriage problems. Matt Abbott had done something bad enough to have her crying her eyes out and drinking herself numb.
“Take it back,” he said.
She blinked. “Take what back?”
He realized how gruff he sounded and tried to lighten his tone. “The rug. Someone takes something from you, don’t let them get away with it. He shouldn’t call all the shots. Seems like he messed up, not you.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but you don’t know what happened. What if it was me?”
“What if you both fucked up, but he fucked up the most?”
That earned him a smile. “I think you’re just trying to make me feel better.”
She had it half-right. He also liked the way talking to her made him feel. Interesting. Capable. Like he was worthy of influencing her mood. “Is it working?”
“Yes.” Her eyes roamed his face. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Rachel’s eyes shifted down to his neck tattoo, and she rubbed the same spot on her throat. “Did it hurt?”
“Yeah,” he said, watching her fingers. There was truth in the way a woman touched herself. Rachel barely grazed her skin, like anything more would leave a bruise.
He must have been staring. She stood quickly and tugged at her dress. “It’s getting late. I should go.”
Nathan stood. “Are you okay to drive?”
“It’s a block away. I’ll be fine.” She walked backward with the hoodie zipped to her chin and the boozy soda cup peeking up from its depths. “That was your car, wasn’t it? The ’69 Camaro?”
“You know your cars?”
She kept walking. “A perk of aging. I know lots of things. Good luck getting your car back.”
He gestured toward her feet. “Good luck finding shoes.”
She rolled her eyes. “I have shoes.”
Nathan grinned. “See there? Things are looking up already.”
CHAPTER THREE
It had been a mild summer, so her roses were still blooming. Rachel sat on the ground in front of her house, staring up at large bushes of bright pink flowers the size of her fist. The scent reminded her of her wedding day. Or maybe it was the night of her senior prom, when Thomas Dunn had pinned a white rose to her breast with sweaty palms, the shoulders she’d always considered broad surprisingly small in his father’s tuxedo. They had gotten high in the limo and stopped at McDonald’s, ordering chicken nuggets and fries. He’d gone down on her in the parking lot before they finally dragged themselves into the gym.
Thomas had cried the day she left for college. At eighteen, she didn’t know how rare it was for a guy his age to show so much emotion. She had avoided his calls for the next two months, smugly certain that real men never made snot bubbles or borrowed their daddy’s tuxedo for a date. That was one of the last things she’d said to him. “It’s time to grow up and be realistic. We were always going to end this way.”
Now she knew reality was overrated. Reality was being rewarded for more than a decade of loyalty with a traitorous dick on your phone. Reality was protesting your prenup with a front yard sit-in surrounded by bushes, thorns, and God knows what else. It was sipping a half-empty cup of whiskey and wearing a stranger’s sweatshirt that you kept sniffing for reasons you should probably ignore.
“Rachel?” Matt’s voice was a sharp whisper. “Are you out here? Rachel?”
She tucked a rose behind her ear, took the lid off her soda cup, and swished it around. Matt stopped a few feet away, hands outstretched, as if he’d found her on the ledge of a building. He had changed into the monogrammed robe and pajamas she’d bought him for his birthday. “Where have you been? You look terrible.”
“Good thing you’ve found a replacement.”