“And what exactly are you hoping to find?” I ask.
“Diaries? Love letters? Handcuffs?” she says. “Something we can gossip about other than you and Ryder.”
“I’m offended,” I say, as I open the door to leave, “that you’d want to talk about anything else.” I blow them kisses and head down the hallway.
I don’t see Ryder when I get back out to the bar—Cash says he’s out back with a vendor—but what I do see is plenty of tables who need refills.
I take the order of five guys who have crushed into a booth that seats four people: three Heinekens, a Jack and Coke, and a Seven and Seven. “Are you gonna join us?” the one in the middle asks.
“I don’t think there’s room for one more body in there,” I say.
He points to his friend on the end. “We can ask Joey to leave,” he says.
“Why do I have to leave?” Joey says. “This place was my idea.”
I laugh. “Y’all figure it out while I get your drinks.”
At the bar, I push through the clusters of people waiting on their drinks to give Cash the order, and that’s when I hear him: “A bourbon, neat, please. Your best one.”
Sebastian’s voice. Lilting and smooth but taut, like a silk ribbon tied too tightly around your neck. He’s standing right next to me, speaking to Cash.
“Coming up,” Cash says to him. “Here, Cass.” Cash opens the last of the Heinekens for me and goes to help another server, but I can’t put the bottles on my tray, can’t even move. I’m stopped dead right where I am, unable to turn my head, to open my mouth. Unable to believe.
It can’t be Sebastian, I think, though I know one-hundred percent that it is. That’s his drink. The way he orders it, no specific brand, just the best one. His manners: please. Charming enough until you remember that manners, really, are just a performance, a way we put on our best selves so no one will see who we really are.
I grip the edge of the bar, trying to catch my breath and not drown in the dark memories from our marriage that flood my mind, wanting to replace the fear I feel with calm so my heart will quiet, stop thumping so loudly in my ears I can’t think. The last thing I want is to freak out in the middle of Altitude.
No. Actually the last thing I want is for Sebastian to be at Altitude.
“Hello, Cass,” he says, his voice slicing through the blare of the music, the chatter of all these people having such a good time. “Is that what you’re going by these days? A short name to go with your short hair. How quaint.”
“What are you doing here?” I whisper, staring down at the bar but seeing nothing through a blur of anger.
“Thought I’d pop in on you, since you haven’t called as I asked,” he says. “Not even a thank you message for the flowers I dropped off.” He takes a step toward me, bending close to my ear. “And I noticed there have been several nights you haven’t slept at your house, so I worried something was terribly, terribly wrong.” He runs his fingers down my arm, his nails grating my bare skin like dull claws. “You know how I can’t help but imagine a worst-case scenario when it comes to my wife.”
I grab his wrist, squeezing it like I’m trying to get blood from a stone, and look directly at him, his black hair and brown eyes, features that I found so enchanting and mysterious once. Sebastian’s not a bad-looking guy, I’ll give him that. But he is a bad guy.
We thread through the crowd as I drag him outside through the front door, hoping that Cash is still too busy to see us, that Ryder’s still out back, that I can get rid of Sebastian before my table starts asking for me and their drinks. He already took two years of my life. I’m not giving up another night.
“You need to leave,” I say, releasing his wrist. We stand on the sidewalk, close to the curb, and I point into the street. “Now.”
“Cassie, don’t be foolish,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” He reaches for my face, and I flinch. “And you can’t go anywhere without me. Despite what you think.”
“How did you even know I was here? Are you stalking me?”
Sebastian laughs, the sound like a rock avalanche, surprising and dangerous. “How can I stalk you? We’re married. I have a right to see you.”
“No, you don’t,” I say. “I left England because I left you. I don’t love you, Sebastian.”