“What is there to explain, really?” the guy says in an English accent. He steps away from the wall and extends his hand toward me, his fingers long and skinny like dry twigs that snap easily. “Sebastian Walsh. I’m Cassie’s husband.”
It takes a second for the words to sink in, and then the idea, the heft of that one sentence like the weight of a thousand worlds crushing my stomach, my lungs, my heart. Husband. There’s no word that sounds much like it, nothing that really rhymes with it. I couldn’t have heard it any clearer. And I can’t understand it much less.
“You’re married?” I say to Cassie.
She nods without looking at me, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk. “So this is why you were in England,” I say.
“And why she’s coming back,” he says, staring at Cassie, his mouth more a smirk than a smile.
“Is that right,” I say. A statement, not a question.
I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the magnolia tree around the corner, out of sight from where we’re standing now. It’s sweet but very light so I don’t know if Cassie or this asshole can even smell it since I’m probably the only one of the three of us who even knows it’s there. It’s kind of wonderful. Cleansing. Relaxing, almost. If they don’t detect it, they’re really missing out, and I guess I could call their attention to it, give them a heads up so they don’t miss it, but then again, why? Because what we’re learning here tonight is that if you know something that someone else doesn’t, you’re not obligated to say a fucking thing, whether he might like to know or not.
In the end, everyone’s responsible for the ignorance they choke on.
“Yes. England is where she belongs. With me.” He grabs Cassie’s upper arm, his fingers digging into her skin as he pulls her away from me.
Cassie tries to shrug off his hand. “Stop,” she says to him. “Stop it, Sebastian.” She jerks her arm, but he doesn’t let go.
I don’t know what I’ve walked into here. I don’t know anything about this guy or this marriage or the fucked-up games they may be playing with each other. And I’m pissed as hell at Cassie—livid, actually. But I’m not going to tolerate anyone being bullied, and from her tense body language and the way she flicks her eyes up at me, I can tell she doesn’t want or need to be held the way he’s holding her, his spidery fingers wrapped around her thin arm. “Alright, let her go, man” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“Is it my accent?” I say, stepping toward him. “I said let her go.”
“Are you telling me how to touch my wife?”
“I’m telling you,” I say, “not to touch her.” My own hands automatically ball into fists at my side, my legs spread slightly, my weight leaned into the front of my feet—the muscle memory of my fighting stance an instinct I can’t avoid in a situation where someone’s being threatened. “Take your hands off her. Or I’m going to take them off for you. And then you’re going to wish you had just done it when I told you to.”
Sebastian narrows his eyes at me. We’re standing nearly toe to toe, his back against the railing of the stairs. He breathes evenly, calmly, and I’ve been in the ring enough to know what the expression on his face means: he’s running through the possible outcomes of this encounter in his head. And he’s seeing that he’s not coming out the winner of this round. He doesn’t remove his hand from her arm, but his fingers loosen enough that she slips out of his grasp.
“And get off my property,” I say to him, leading Cassie up the stairs, my hand at the small of her back.
“You don’t own the sidewalk, mate,” he says.
“You don’t know what I own.” I open the door and push Cassie ahead of me, following her inside the bar.
As soon as we walk into the packed fog of laughing, drinking, partying people in Altitude, I drop my hand from Cassie’s lower back and step ahead of her. I don’t need her leading me anywhere else tonight.
“Ryder, wait,” she says. But I don’t. I keep walking toward the kitchen or my office or the back parking lot. I don’t even know. I just want to keep moving, because I’m too angry to stand still.
“Ryder,” she says, grabbing my elbow. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to get involved with that. With him.”
“With you?” I say.
“No,” she says. “I’m not sorry about that part.”
“Is he really your husband?”
“He’s…” she starts, closing her eyes. “It’s complicated.” She reaches her hands toward my chest, and I dart away before she can touch me.
“No, it’s not,” I say. “It’s a yes or no question. Is he really your husband?”
She looks around, like she’s searching for the answer somewhere in the air around us though we both know already it’s right on the tip of her tongue. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, he is. But you don’t understand.”