“I’m not sure how to say this,” he continued.
“Are you pregnant?”
He coughed once, as if choking. “Under normal circumstances, I’d laugh my ass off at that question. But…” He walked away. “Fuck.”
One thing I’d learned: nothing good ever started with the wordfuck.
“Just tell me, Archer. You brought it up, so there’s no going back.”
He leaned against the opposite wall and rubbed his forehead. “Krys and I drove to Austin yesterday to hang out. No, that’s not right. I don’t want to lie to you. We visited Noah’s club.”
I clenched my fists when I remembered Noah mentioning Archer tried to attack him. “For what reason?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Something seemed off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Do you know what kind of club he works at?” Archer looked at me, eyebrows angled like a man forced to speak the truth.
“Just a dance club.”
He bobbed his head. “That’s one name for it. Another is a strip club. And yet another is a sex club. Lots of dirty shit goes on there. Sensory exchanges, kinky sex, and your boyfriend spends his time and money doing all that with his coworkers. He doesn’t even go to a different club. The first five minutes I was there, he licked a woman between the legs.”
A knife sliced through my heart. The contents of a two-year commitment with a man I thought I could trust spilled out.
Archer lowered his head. “I saw him go to a private room with a sex worker. He paid for lap dances, sensory exchanges, and spent a shitload of money. Apparently that’s how he unwinds after work. He says he does it all the time to relax. I don’t like telling you this, but you deserve to know the truth. He lies about working late so he can get off with those women.”
I pivoted and stalked down the far aisle before stopping at the section on Vampire history. My heart was racing so fast that I struggled to catch my breath.
Archer appeared at the end of the aisle. “I thought maybe you knew and were turning a blind eye.”
“You thought I knew?” I covered my face.
Sothat’swhat people thought of me. That I was the type of woman who didn’t care. I’d put more work into our relationship, and if anyone cared, it was me.
Noah had sex with his coworkers? Repeatedly? Daily? He berated me for buying food and necessities when he was giving away his paycheck to sex workers? How many times?
The temptation to hurl books flashed in my mind.
“It sounds like you boys had a good time.”
Drawing closer, he lowered his voice. “I didn’t do any of that. We were just there.”
Archer kept talking while two years of my life flashed before my eyes. The hopes and dreams of a naïve girl who thought she’d found love. Even when things weren’t perfect, I gave him all, knowing we would weather the storm and find a better life. It was as if my existence was cleaved in two—one half thebeforeand the other theafter.
Did he ever love me? Did I drive him away? Why was I never enough?
All this time, I’d beaten myself up for cheating once.
Once.
Meanwhile, Noah had made it a recreational activity. But if he wasn’t happy, why was he always coming down on me about everything? If he didn’t care, wouldn’t it have been easier for him to leave?
“Is there anything else I should know?” I managed to say through my nebulous thoughts.
Archer swirled around and stared at the bookcase.
“Take me there,” I insisted. “Tomorrow.”
“The hell I will,” he bit out. Then he filled his lungs with a breath and blew it out. “You don’t believe me,” he said, his tone now level and calm.
“How do I know you don’t have ulterior motives? How can I trust anyone!” I shrieked.
