He glanced at her and smiled. “I love you, too, hon.”
When she returned to her office, her head was spinning. She glanced down at her wedding ring set. It fit snugly—almost too tight—on her finger and shone dully back at her. When they first got married, she’d cleaned it at least once a week. Gavin would make fun of her, but she knew he secretly loved how much pride she took in it. “One day when I make more money, I’m gonna upgrade it,” he’d say. But she loved the quarter-carat diamond more than anything, and it bothered her when he fantasized about replacing it.
“This ring means more to me than any other one you could ever put on my finger,” she’d say, holding her hand in front of her as she admired the tiny sparkle. “It will always remind me of who we were when we got married.”
“Young, poor, and desperate to have sex?” he’d say, laughing.
She’d blush. “Oh stop it, Gavin.” He’d kiss her to let her know he was joking. She’d kiss him back to let him know she loved him.
They’d had fewer moments like that since Sadie came along. It was hard having a baby, sure. But not hard enough that he should be running off to a strip club. It’s not true. It can’t be, she thought as she opened up Gavin’s Twitter account. The words “What’s happening?” stared back at her. He would never do that. The cursor blinked. Would he?
Of course not.
“Listen to your gut as often as you listen to God,” she typed. “Both will give you the right answers.” TWEET.
9
gabrielle
GABBY POPPED AN aspirin in her mouth and downed it with a glass of water, saying a hallelujah for naptime. Most days, she felt lucky that Claire had hired her to work at the church day care, but today had been a new level of exhausting. Three of the toddlers had colds and were dripping snot everywhere, one of the infants projectile vomited all over her colleague, and Gabby had spent the entire morning trying to calm down Carter Montgomery’s tantrum over a stuffed dragon. Now, with the kids finally slumbering on red and blue mats scattered around the room, she lowered her head and sighed. Is this really my life? She’d always dreamed of working with kids . . . but as a teacher, not some glorified nanny.
The day care door creaked open, and Claire popped her head in. Gabby held a finger over her lips, angling her head toward the sleeping kids. Claire crept toward her, an oversize knit scarf wrapped around her shoulders.
“Just came to say hello to my Sadie,” Claire whispered, scanning the room. “But if everyone’s napping . . .”
Gabby was shocked by her normally tidy friend’s appearance. Claire’s mascara was smudged under her eyes, and if Gabby wasn’t mistaken, there was some sort of food smeared on her blouse. “You okay?” Gabby asked, nodding at the stain.
“Oh.” Claire blushed and wiped at it. “Yeah, just a busy day. I ate pie for lunch, clearly a little too enthusiastically.” She looked up from her shirt. “Hey, do you want to come over after work?”
Gabby grabbed a red Twizzler from the staff candy jar and bit into it. “I can’t—I’m meeting up with Tony.”
“Ooh, the mysterious Tony . . .” Claire grabbed a Twizzler out of the jar, too. “When do we get to meet him?”
“Um . . .” Gabby lowered her head. She wanted to say soon but didn’t want to lie. She had been doing enough of that already—precisely why she was in this mess in the first place.
The night she had met Tony, she was at a bachelorette party in Lafayette, draped in plastic penis necklaces. Tony came up to her at the bar and asked her if she liked his jacket. When she shot him a confused look, he said, “It’s made out of boyfriend material,” then flashed her a smooth grin.
Gabby rolled her eyes and walked away, uninterested in cheesy pickup lines. Her ex-boyfriend Russell had opened with something similar, and it was all downhill from there. Not doing that again, she thought as she joined her friends back at the table. But the other girls at the party admitted they put him up to it; it was a challenge on the bachelorette party dare sheet. A bridesmaid bought Tony a drink for playing along, and he in turn gave it to Gabby as an apology.
“Do you like Guinness?” he asked her.
“Yeah,” she said, accepting the drink. (Lie number one.)
“It was a pretty suave line, right?” he asked as they huddled at a high-top table in the corner.
She shook her head. “Please don’t ever use that on another girl.”
“Because you’d be jealous?” He smiled, his cheeks dimpling, and Gabby realized how cute he was.
She smiled back. “Because you sound like an ass.”
When he asked her about her family, she told him what she told most strangers: “My parents aren’t around anymore.”
“Oh, I’m sorry—they passed away?” he asked, looking genuinely sad for her.
She nodded. (Lie number two.) To her, it was easier and less embarrassing than having to admit she didn’t even know her dad and that her mom had gone to prison for embezzlement her senior year of high school—a ten-year sentence that she was now only four years into.
“What school do you go to?” Tony had asked her, his TAG Heuer watch peeking out from his blazer.
“U.L.,” she’d said, thinking of the closest school in the area: University of Louisiana at Lafayette. (Lie number three.) Gabby hadn’t even applied there . . . but to be fair, she’d gotten into an even more prestigious school: Tulane. After her mom was arrested, she hadn’t been able to afford college—any college—so it was kind of a moot point. But it was fun pretending she was still that girl for a moment. So when he asked her major, she continued living in her fantasy and said education (lie number four), just like she had always dreamed about. And she left out the part about living in Toulouse and working at a day care (not a lie, per se . . . just a pretty big omission). In her head, it was fine. This was just a fun night out with the girls; she’d never see this guy again, anyway.
The more they talked, though, the more she realized all the things they had in common. Like how they both secretly loved courtroom TV shows—not the dramas, but the petty small-claims reality shows. And how their playlists consisted of both Lil Wayne and Wayne Newton. He was even helping his dad with an education reform bill and asked if he could get her ideas.