“What?” She shook her head and showed her palms. “He’s lying, Eric! I have never cheated on you! He’slying!”
I crossed my arms. “Who said anything about cheating?” I looked at Jesse. “Did you say anything about cheating?”
He shrugged innocently. “I didn’t say a word about cheating. And I didn’t hearyousay anything about cheating.”
We both turned pointedly back to Selena. More color slipped out of her face as tears started to roll down her cheeks. She stared at us in stunned silence while her phone continued to alternately ping and play her ringtone.
Even as I watched her slam face first into the consequences of her own actions, there was a part of me that felt bad. I even felt a little guilty for confronting her like this with Jesse. Why? No idea. On some level, I did still love her. Or at least the idea of her. The version of her I’d thought I was marrying.
“What about the wedding?” she wailed. “We can’t just cancel it after we spent all that money and invited so many people and?—”
“We can. And I already did.” I gestured at her phone. “Like I said, word is already out.”
Her jaw went slack. “You—you didn’t even wait to tell me first? You just?—”
“You cheated on me.” I gestured at Jesse. “You cheated onbothof us. And you think I should be considerate of you?” I scoffed. “Fuck off, Selena.”
She swiped at her eyes with a shaky hand, the diamond I’d bought her glinting in the kitchen light. “Eric. Please. I’m sorry. I?—”
“You’re only sorry you got caught,” I growled. “I kind of want to ask what your endgame was—how long you were going to string us both along—but quite frankly, I don’t want to know.” I looked at Jesse. “Ready to get out of here?”
“When you are.”
We both brushed past her toward the kitchen door, and she was apparently so stunned that she didn’t even bother to try to stop either of us.
As we crossed the garage, though, she found her voice.
“Youasshole!” she screamed after us. Something metallic pinged against a shelf just inches from Jesse’s head before it clattered to the concrete floor.
I looked down to see her engagement ring rolling under her car. As it came to a stop and fell over beside the tire, she was still screaming at me, calling me every name in the book and trying to gaslight both of us—and probably herself—into thinking this was my or Jesse’s fault.
Whatever. I was done.
I picked up the ring off the floor, slipped it into my pocket, and continued toward my car.
Shutting the doors and starting the garage door opener cut off her voice. She kept screaming after us as I backed out, but fortunately, I couldn’t make out any of it. Not through the windows. Not over the engine. Not over the blood pounding in my ears.
A neighbor poked her head out her front door, peering over with a concerned expression. Others were starting to step out of their garages.
Fine. Let them listen. Let them talk. Selena could tell them all what an absolute asshole I was and how I’d crushed herby abandoning her just before our wedding. Whatever. I didn’t care.
As I drove us out of the neighborhood, Jesse and I were silent. He stared out the window. I fixed my gaze on the road.
I searched for relief or closure or something, but I came up empty. Everywhere my emotions should’ve been, I just found hollow voids of numbness. No grief. No shock. No relief.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Because I was pretty sure it would suck when the dam finally broke.
CHAPTER 6
JESSE
The silence held as Eric drove us back toward my place. Some part of me thought we should be high-fiving and whooping it up over putting our cheating ex in her well-deserved place. We should’ve been pumping our fists and cursing her name.
Instead, the mood in the car was somber. Though I couldn’t read his mind, his expression was filled with the fatigue, shock, and“what the fuck do I do now?”that I was feeling. Or maybe I was projecting.
Whatever the case, we were silent as Eric drove us out of his neighborhood and got on the freeway toward my place.Ourplace. I had no idea how long that arrangement would last. I couldn’t imagine he wanted to stay with his ex’s sidepiece longer than he had to. Quite honestly, I didn’t mind if he hung around for a while; whether it was rational or not, I still felt horribly guilty about everything, and putting him up assuaged my conscience a little.
