She sat down and ordered a coffee.
“So how are the fam and Olivia?”
“OK.” She nodded, distracted with her earlier thoughts. She picked up on his silence and caught a serious expression on Tom’s face.
“I mean, yes,” she said more enthusiastically. “Like really good.”
Because a weekend of sex and loving Olivia cast a glow over everything.
He smiled, pouring milk into his coffee and stirring it with great deliberation. “You’re not thinking of getting married again, are you?”
“What? How did you–”
“You are so predictably heteronormative, darling,” he grinned, camping up the line.
To be fair, she’d wondered at the pressure too.
She sighed. “Don’t you ever want to throw ‘my husband’ at them though?” She gestured to where the photographer had been. “When they’re hurling insinuating comments at you about every woman co-star and taking pictures like that.”
He shrugged.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I can live with it.”
She shook her head.
It was worse on premiere nights, people shouting out how friendly she and her leading man were. Every time.
“Sometimes,” she breathed out, “I want to turn around and say no, I’m not with that guy. Because I’m going home to my kids and mywife.”
She stressed the word ‘wife’ – short and sweet with a whole social weight and significance. And for Kate, saying wife as a woman had a rebellious power, gay marriage still contentious for some and a right that she didn’t take for granted.
“I gave up caring what people say,” Tom replied. “Seriously, the more they fabricate the better, then I can dismiss the truth as rubbish too when I want.”
Kate felt differently though, wanting to protect her family and keep them out of the media. Mentions of her too if possible, so that gossip wasn’t thrown at her kids in the playground. It had been quiet lately, after filming and a premiere, then moving into the background work of an exec while Zoe was tiny. But it would escalate as soon as she took roles again.
They moved on.
She pushed away the thoughts over coffee, but it still bothered her as she parted from Tom outside in the dusk and he left for the town centre.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The same guy stood along the pavement, clearly swiping through some photos, and she imagined the hug goodbye was one of them.
“Got a new man, Kate?” he yelled.
She rolled her eyes. The body language between her and Tom wasn’t the least bit romantic. And most people would know that he had zero interest in women.
The guy lifted his chin, aggrieved she’d not taken the bait.
“Nah. Forgot you were into women as well, with your wife.”
She stared at him, an iciness filling her chest. The freezing cold realisation crept into her jaw and arms.
Natalie. He meant her ex-wife, Natalie.
He grinned, clearly satisfied with how the word landed, and took a photo of her standing there stricken. Bastard.
