“Yeah,” she exhaled a long breath. “She’s the last one of us. I can’t believe how you guys built this place up. Things are a lot different since that crazy night four years ago.” Her eyebrows jumped and I sensed Thea stiffen beside me.
Fuck.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your night. Nice to see you guys, again.”
April sauntered off, oblivious to the bomb she just dropped.
“Four years ago?” Thea asked. “I thought when you came here you were so out of it you and Joe didn’t even speak.”
“He was,” Joe offered in my defense. “When he first came here, we spent long days knocking down walls and sanding down everything. I pushed him out one night to get a drink after a long day, that’s all.”
She sucked in a breath as she pressed her hands on the table.
“If that was all, then why did the two of you cringe when she came to the table?” Thea’s voice shook and my stomach bottomed out in panic.
This couldn’t derail us, but her ticking jaw told me that we were sprinting in that direction.
“And all this happened when youfirstcame out here?”
I spied Joe wince as we all watched Thea put the pieces together.
“Thea,” I started, but didn’t know how to finish. There was nothing I could do or say, she was too smart to be lied to.
“Well, I’m glad you found a way out of your crippling grief long enough to stick your dick in one of the locals after a long day of dry wall.” Her chair screeched as she shot up and grabbed her purse. “Goodnight, Caterina, Joe. I’m leaving.”
Thea cut her way through the restaurant toward the parking lot. I ran after her, screaming her name but she either didn’t hear me over the loud din of the crowd, or she was ignoring me.
I finally caught up to her, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to make her look at me.
“Thea, let me explain, please,” I begged. “It was one drunken, stupid night a long time ago—”
I fell back when she slapped me across my face, the loud smack echoing across the parking lot.
“How could you do that? Do you know how long it was before I could even look at anyone again, much less let anyone touch me?” Her voice screeched as thick tears streamed down her face. “I cried for you every night, and I couldn’t even let myself be mad at you because you were grieving for your mother.” She swiped at her cheeks with the palm of her hand. “God, what a fucking idiot I am. You weren’t out here a month I bet before you moved on.”
“No! I never stopped loving you. Ever.” I clutched her by the arms, panic and desperation filling me with the worst kind of dread. “That night I realized what a horrible mistake I made and tried to call you, but I was too late.”
“Am I right? What was it, like a month?” Her nostrils flared as the tears continued to snake down her cheeks.
“I don’t know. I didn’t keep track of time back then. Maybe, I’m honestly not sure,” I stammered, wondering when the hell I went from having all my dreams coming true to living my worst nightmare.
“Want to know what I was doing a month after you left?” She linked her arms over her chest, her hands shaking as she tried to bury them under her elbows.
“You said you were in the hospital for appendicitis when I tried to call you.”
“I lied.” Her jaw ticked as she stepped closer to me. “I did spend the weekend in the hospital after having emergency surgery. I lost our baby the month after you left.”
The blood drained from my head as I fell back again, this time from my insides clenching and twisting as if I’d been shot. Everything was spinning around me and I couldn’t breathe. I held on to the edge of the trunk of Thea’s car to stay upright.
“Our baby? Thea, what are you talking about?”
My brain couldn’t absorb what she was saying.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant until I almost died from it. I grieved a baby I didn’t even know about—by myself—because how could I come to you with another loss? But what aboutmylosses, Dominic?” she bellowed, digging her finger into her chest.
She shook her head and backed away.
“I never should’ve come here in the first place.”
