“What the fuck—no, Chloe, she put it there before she left. I looked everywhere for it! She had it! You have to believe me!”
My head shook, tears threatening to spill, but I kept it together. “So much for feeling everything.”
I twisted around and made sure I was out of his house before he could come after. Normally, he wouldn’t chase after me, but this time, he did. He hurried out, shouting my name, and before I could hit the main street, he gripped my elbow, picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and then walked back for his house.
His body was hard, but I pounded and kicked, begging him to put me down. I knew he wouldn’t. He no longer cared. There were neighbors out, all of them watching, flooding me with embarrassment.
I hated him. So much.
When he was inside the house, he placed me on the rug in his living room, and I immediately shoved him with my hands as soon as I was free. The tears had surely left me, trailing down flared cheeks. “You’re a liar, Theo! That’s all you are! A liar!” He flinched, but I knew I wasn’t hurting him with my actions. I was killing him with my words. “You know how I feel about you,” my voice cracked. “You know how much I love you, and you used that against me! I can’t even stand to look at you! What am I to you? Huh? Just a quick lay? Easy pussy for the summer?”
My voice thickened, filled with a blistering heap of emotions. I hit him again and again, pounding, wanting to hurt him like he’d hurt me. He didn’t speak, and it only increased my anger. I went in for one last blow with both hands, but he caught my wrists and a deep grunt filled the room as he crushed me against his large body.
My fighting didn’t stop. It was weak and lame, but I didn’t stop. “I hate you,” I whispered. “I swear. I hate how you make me feel.”
“You don’t mean that,” he murmured. His voice broke, cutting my heart up in a thousand ways. “You don’t fucking mean that shit.” He lifted my head, and when I didn’t focus on his face, he gripped it in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Come on, Chloe, you know me! You fucking know me! I wouldn’t lie to you! Trixie saw me last night—she saw me climbing through your window. She waited for me to get home—said she found a better job in LA and wasn’t going to Vegas—but she saw me. She is going to use this shit against me. She fucking threatened to go over and tell you, but I didn’t want you to hear it from her. I wanted you to hear it from me—the truth. I’m a forty-two year old man. I have no fucking reason to lie to you. Those days when I used to play mind games with girls are over. A real man stands up to his demons. Trust me, baby,” he murmured, swiping one of my tears away. “I’m not lying to you. I would never lie to you.”
My sniffles calmed as his voice hummed through me, the tears slowly drying. What the hell? Was he serious?
“Look, I told her about you once before, and she remembered. She knows what you are to me… to Izzy. She has Izzy’s number. She said she’d call her, Chloe. Fucking Izzy. She said she’d tell her everything. I fucking panicked, and I knew if I kicked her out, she’d call first thing and fuck up everything.”
“W-what?” I gasped then jerked away, not because I didn’t believe him, but because this was bad. Really bad.
“Wait—why would she threaten you? She wants you back?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The drop of his head and how it hung in shame was proof enough.
“Theo, oh my God,” I swiped my face. “This cannot be happening right now!”
“I was trying to tell you. She knows… she knows everything. She stayed last night, but I didn’t sleep with her. I got her drunk and let her pass out on the couch.” I could imagine it vividly. I was sure she tried to seduce him, touch him, and even offer to suck him off. She was a girl that thrived on sex. I despised her existence. “I thought I could get into her phone, delete Izzy’s number, but it’s locked.” He scratched his head out of nervous habit. “I tried, Chloe. I swear I did, but until I get that number deleted or get her to leave me alone, I have to keep seeing her.”
“Theo, no.” I placed my hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eyes. “I’m sure she’s going to write it down as soon as she gets the chance. She may seem dumb, but I have a feeling she’s not. Why else would she threaten to snitch? She’s gonna need a backup plan.”
“Shit,” he hissed.
I looked down, battling tears again. Silence surrounded us, and when it occurred to me what we would have to do, I wanted to cry. “There’s… only one thing we can do.” I stole a peek at him, and as if he had the same thought, his face went stone cold. He hated the idea, but deep down, he knew I was right. “We have to tell Izzy.”
Theo stared at me for several seconds, then he walked past me, dropping on the sofa. “I—shit, we can’t do that.”
“What other choice do we have?” My voice was thick. I walked towards him, taking the spot on his left. “I’ve had this planned out in case she ever found out. I’ll tell her that it was my fault. That I tempted you, and we got carried away.”
He groaned, his face planted in his hands. “She’ll never believe that. She knows how you are and how much you value your relationship with her. She’ll know it was me.” He dropped his hands. “Fuck, man, I’ll lose her. I know I will. She won’t forgive me, and if she does, she’ll never look at me the same. She won’t trust me… she won’t come home.” He looked down, brown eyes glossy. “She’s all I have, man. Her and you. I can’t afford to lose both. Because I know if she finds out, I won’t just be losing her, I’ll be losing you too. You’ll regret it. You’ll hate yourself for ruining your friendship with her, and that’ll leave you no choice but to stay away from the person that intervened. Me. We can’t, Chloe.”
I watched his eyes and saw the loneliness within them. The gloom was clear. He knew we’d fucked up the moment we decided to touch each other. He knew his daughter, how stubborn she was. He also knew that she’d jump to conclusions about him, consider him a fuck-up husband to Mrs. Black because he had sex with me only six weeks after her death.
It wasn’t nearly enough time to heal. She’d blame him and tell him straight to his face that he was a coward that never loved his wife and was ready to move on. I knew because he told me she called him a pussy for not waiting for Mrs. Black after the bakery party. I knew Izzy just as well as I knew him. They were alike in ways, but when it came to acceptance, that was one trait Izzy was shy of.
She wouldn’t understand; she wouldn’t get it. She’d wonder about it for the rest of her life, most likely questioning our friendship. She’d try and say it was all bullshit, that I stuck around to get closer to Theo, but really it wasn’t. I loved Izzy, but I broke her heart three years ago, and she didn’t even know it.
“I’m so sorry for this mess,” Theo apologized. He grabbed my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. I stared down at our fingers, the silver band that he never took off now missing from his ring finger. The tan mark was no longer there. It blended in with the rest of his olive skin. “Look, how about I cook you some dinner? We can talk about this.”
I dropped my head, and with a calmness that nowhere near justified all I was feeling, I stood, releasing his hand. “No, I think I should go. You know neither of us can think when we’re around each other. I’m nothing but a distraction for you.”
He shot to a stand as I backed away to the door. “Don’t say shit like that, Chloe.” He marched forward, clasping my face in his hands and forcing me to look at him. “Don’t say stupid shit to me—don’t say shit you don’t even believe. You aren’t a distraction. You have never been a distraction for me.”
“No? Then what am I?”
He released my face, watching my sullen eyes. “You are everything to me.” He blinked, his hands capping my shoulders. With his lips on my forehead, he whispered. “Everything. I love you. Never think twice about that.”