‘The fucking hell it’s not! Wait, you’re not on speaker, are you?’
Lucy chuckled. ‘Never when I’m talking to you, sugar-lips. Look . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Ask him. But . . .’
Gwyn was almost at Thorne’s house. ‘But what?’
‘God.’ Lucy drew in an audible breath. ‘Gwyn, have you ever thought about Thorne . . . you know. Like that?’
Gwyn blinked. ‘Like what?’ And then she understood. ‘Like that? Like . . . romantically?’
‘Or just physically, even.’ Lucy’s voice held a wince.
No, Gwyn started to say, but stopped herself. Because it would be a lie. A vicious, hateful lie.
‘Oh,’ Lucy whispered into the quiet. ‘Good to know.’
‘Only once or twice.’ Liar. ‘A long time ago.’ Dirty liar. ‘We’re co-workers.’ That at least was true. ‘It . . . it never would have worked out.’ But her protest sounded weak, even to her own ears.
‘Okay.’ Lucy drew the word out, then cleared her throat. ‘Well, you might not have been alone in . . . you know, whatever it was that you did or didn’t feel, once or twice, a long time ago.’
The thought rocked Gwyn soundly. ‘Really?’
‘Maybe. Just . . . stay calm. Hear him out. Then if you still want to kill him, call me and I’ll come get you. You can work it out on JD’s punching bag in the basement.’
Gwyn shuddered out a breath. ‘Deal.’ She ended the call as she pulled into Thorne’s driveway. Cutting the engine, she fished his house keys from her purse. She’d had keys to Thorne’s house for as long as she could remember. They watered each other’s plants when they traveled, picked up each other’s mail, and fed the other’s pets.
She looked in her rear-view mirror at Tweety, who was strapped in his harness in the backseat. ‘You know where you gotta go, dude.’ Thorne had a special area set aside for Tweety in his yard, because his cat tended to hide whenever they came over.
She’d named the yellow Dane Tweety because Thorne’s cat was a tiny tuxedo named Sylvester and it had seemed cute at the time. Ironically enough, Tweety loved Sylvester, but because the feeling was not mutual, they had to keep the animals separated.
Yet another reason it would never have worked.
Except . . . Gwyn closed her eyes, thinking of Thomas Thorne, all six feet six lickable inches of him. Dark hair, square jaw, just the right amount of stubble all the time. Muscles. Acres of muscles. He was like a god. Seriously. The man could have been a Hollywood star. Women swooned after him wherever he went. But he generally didn’t date.
Not recently, anyway.
Not in four and a half years. Gwyn swallowed hard as the realization hit. Not since . . . Evan. The killer she’d taken into her bed. The man who’d had an obsession with Lucy. Who’d killed so many people, who’d . . . used me. He used me to lure Lucy. So that he could kill her. After he killed me.
Which would have been bad enough. Except he’d done more than lure Gwyn. He’d . . .
Her eyes flew open and she blinked rapidly, trying to banish the pictures in her mind. Images that still had the power to freeze the blood in her veins.
He’d done a lot more. Things she’d never shared with a living soul – not even Lucy. And especially not Thorne. In the aftermath, there hadn’t seemed to be any point.
Evan was dead. He’d lied for months, tricking her into believing he could be ‘the one’. Telling me that he loved me. Just so that he could get close to Lucy. Everyone who had an Internet connection knew that she’d been humiliated.
But that she was a victim of rape? No, she didn’t want anyone looking at her with even more pity. So she’d kept that ordeal to herself. Until sixteen months ago, when she’d finally found a therapist who’d helped her begin her recovery.
She could hear her therapist’s voice in her mind. It’s not happening now. Repeat after me, Gwyn. Gwyn had obeyed, saying that phrase over and over. It’s not happening now. And after months of repetition, she’d finally started to believe it was true.
Hands shaking, she unlocked her phone and swiped through her photos, replacing the nightmare in her mind with real faces, just as her therapist had taught her to do. Real people. Real people who loved her.
Lucy, JD. Their babies, Jeremiah and Bronwynne. Named after me. Little Wynnie had Gwyn’s middle name. A different kind of hurt squeezed at her heart, just as it did every time she looked at Lucy’s children. She loved them like they were her own, but they weren’t her own. Yet she’d had her own child. Once.
She studied Jeremiah’s photo, feeling the old yearning descend, suffocating her. Allowing her son to be adopted was still the hardest choice she’d ever made in her life. It had been the right choice for him, though. She knew that. She’d been alone and too young to care for a child then. She’d finally stopped second-guessing herself after a decade, but it had re-emerged the first time she’d held Lucy’s son in her arms.
She’d never told Lucy. Never told Thorne. It was too personal. And although she knew she’d done the right thing, the fact that she’d given her child away . . . It shamed her.
Anxiety began to build and her heart began to race and . . . I’m not going there. Not today. Redoubling her focus on her phone’s screen, she looked at picture after picture. Her friends, her dog, the publicity shots she’d taken of the dancing crowd at the club . . . She studied each one for a second or two, until she came to Thorne’s photo.
Everything inside her relaxed. He was real. And he did love her. Even if it was only in friendship.
Except . . . what if it wasn’t only in friendship? She’d taken this photo last week, wanting to capture the look on his face when he saw the gift she’d left in his desk at Sheidalin. The coloring book. The Kama Sutra coloring book, actually.
Which she’d given him after he’d left a Kama Sutra playing card on her desk, his way of teasing her about her ability to twist her body into positions no other performer could achieve. She’d thought it a little risqué at the time, even for Thorne, but she’d laughed it off.
He’d followed that first card with fifty-one more, because it had been a set. One or two a week. She’d started looking forward to them. And when she’d stumbled on the coloring book, it had seemed the perfect gift.
Except she hadn’t really stumbled on it so much as typed the phrase ‘Kama Sutra products’ into her browser. She’d been flirting back, she admitted, ever since she’d started performing again a year ago, beginning with the aerial silks on Sheidalin’s stage.
It had been out of expediency at first. Lucy had been out on this latest maternity leave, creating holes in their schedule that Gwyn had been unable to fill with reliable bands. But after some initial nerves, hitting the stage again had felt right. It had been time. And Thorne had been delighted to see her come back to them.
It had been years since Gwyn had last performed. Not since him.
And she was not going there. Not right now. Not ever, she wanted to promise, but she knew that was a promise she couldn’t keep. Her therapist had assured her that would be the case, and the woman had been correct.
I wonder what she’d say about Thorne. About him threatening my date. Maybe all of my dates.
What if Lucy was right? What if Thorne had feelings? For me? She looked at the photo on her phone once again. His face had gone slack with shock when he’d found her gift, but then he’d turned a look on her. A smolder.
She hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, but now . . . Yeah. It was there.
And it scared her senseless.
Thorne and Lucy were her very best friends in all the world. If she and Thorne did start something and it failed? She’d be risking everybody’s happiness.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, making her jump. A text from Lucy.
Well?
Gwyn sighed. Still sitting in my car, she typed back. She’d been sitting there for a long time, she realized. Thinking. Wishing.
GET IN THERE, Lucy replied.