“That’s yours?”
“Yeah, it’s mine. Who else’s would it be?”
“Where’d you get it?”
This was something I was unprepared for, and I stumbled on the response. “It was a gift.”
“A gift?” He stepped closer, his eyes dark, and I tried to understand where his tension was coming from. Had I been gazing at the calendar with doe eyes, my chin cupped in my hands? Did I absentmindedly draw hearts in the border? Or was this just his intuition, in the same way that I had gut-felt that he was being unfaithful? “A gift from who?”
“Just a barista at a coffee shop.” It was the first lie I arrived on, and hopefully one with enough truth to pass his bullshit detector.
“A barista gave you a calendar and you didn’t find that odd?”
“It was, like, a hundredth-customer-of-the-day kind of prize,” I defended, and that was good, very believable. My patting on the back was interrupted by his next question.
“Which coffee shop?”
“What?” I let out a strangled laugh. “Why do you care? It’s a calendar. Since when did you become so interested in my coffee habits?”
“Which. Coffee. Shop?” He leaned closer, and I could smell the sour tinge of orange juice on his breath.
A Starbucks seemed unbelievable, so I grabbed the first local one I could think of. “The one over by the mall, near the shoe repair shop.”
Great. With my luck, he’d stop by and drill them about the giveaway. What a stupid lie. Why was he even asking about this? I should have just said that I bought it. Was it too late to change my story?
I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to change the direction of the conversation back to the fact that he’d thrown away my calendar. “I don’t understand why you put it in the trash.”
He started, then stopped, like my car when we were trying to teach Jacob how to drive a stick. I watched, fascinated, while he struggled to find a response. This was jealousy, surely. Was it possible that he knew, or suspected, something about David?
A warm calm settled over me, like a blanket had been wrapped around me. He did care. Me, stepping out, would or did affect my husband in some way.
I’d really begun to question that, over the last few years. The confirmation of it, even if it existed in the form of a ruined fact-a-day desk calendar ... was comforting. I bit the inside of my lip to keep from smiling and watched as he reached back and twisted the knob of the back door.
“Well?” I pressed.
“A coffee shop just gave it to you. When? How long ago?”
“I don’t know,” I grumbled—though I did know, because I had pulled off the already-past days and started on the day he gave it to me: October 3. It was exactly two weeks ago. “Two weeks? Three? Maybe four?” I added the extra time in case he went to the coffee shop and started asking questions, which my normal husband would never do, but this new Mike—attentive, always-around Mike—I was beginning to fear he actually would.
“Four weeks?” He seemed aghast at the news. “You’ve had this calendar for four weeks?”
I let out an awkward laugh. “Maybe? Why are you freaking out about this?”
He let out an irritated breath and swung the back door open. “Just start clearing things with me, Lill. Jesus Christ.” Storming out the door, he let it slam shut behind him with a bang that reverberated the tile underneath my bare feet. I turned my head and watched through the kitchen window as he returned to the shed.
Oh my word. I looked at the sad state of the calendar, then carefully dropped it back into the trash can.
I should have felt guilty, bringing a gift from David into my home, especially since our friendship had taken a definite and authoritative leap into the territory of an affair. But I didn’t. I felt reckless and brave, like a woman who went after what she wanted and saidthe hell withany repercussions.
I felt like Taylor.
CHAPTER 28
LILLIAN
“We should go on a trip together.” David floated beside me, his back flat on a paddleboard, his fingers loosely intertwined with mine. “What’s your favorite place in the world?”
“My favorite place?” I closed my eyes. “Hmm. I don’t know. I haven’t been to many places.”