“So,” Abby said softly, “he got back together with his girlfriend, and you were with Tom?”
“I don’t think he got back together with his ex, actually. I mean, I guess I wouldn’t know, but he deployed right after the bar exam, and she started posting pictures with some new guy not long after. And Tom, you know that story. He asked me out a couple times in law school, but I was never interested. Not with Dylan there every day. Nothing happened with Tom until a year later when we were both in Virginia Beach.” Kelsi shrugged, done with the recap of her shitty love life.
“I’m sorry, babe.” Abby pulled her in for another hug, this one shorter.
“Okay, enough about me. What did you have to tell me that you needed coffee for first?”
Abby winced, putting more space between them as she leaned back against the kitchen counter behind her. “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this now, but you need to know, and I don’t know that any time will be good.”
Kelsi’s stomach dropped. “What is it?”
“So, since you brought up Sheridan, I might have run ateensylittle background check on him.”
“And you found something?”
“I found something. Last night,” Abby confirmed with another grimace. She took a long sip from her coffee, leaving Kelsi waiting anxiously to hear what it was. “He, um, well, he’s married.”
“He’swhat?” Kelsi must have heard Abby wrong. There was no way he was married. Someone in town would’ve known, right? This place was too small to hide a whole wife.
“Married.”
Nope, Kelsi had definitely heard right the first time.
“His wife is living in Fairfax. Owns a flower shop. They got married two years ago. I couldn’t find any court files for a divorce, but maybe they’re separated?”
“Separated doesn’t make it any better. He’smarried, and he never told me. God, I feel sick.” Kelsi covered her mouth with her hand, worried the coffee was about to make a reappearance.
“I’m sorry, K. I didn’t want to tell you after whatever happened last night, but I also didn’t want you to go any longer without knowing.”
“No, you were right to tell me. Thank you.” She reached over and squeezed Abby’s arm in a quick gesture. “Seriously, though. What else could go wrong in my life this year?”
“Maybe it can only go up from here?” Abby asked, an awkward smile on her face as she tried to lighten the heavy mood in the kitchen.
“Let’s hope.” Kelsi drained the rest of her cup. “I’m gonna head upstairs for a bit. I just—I need to be alone right now.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Kelsi was sitting in her loft, staring across the creek at Dylan’s house. Now that she knew it was his, the view looked entirely different. She desperately wanted to know what he was doing at that moment, but at the same time wanted to forget him entirely. It hurt too much to think about him in the wake of him leaving her, once again, after giving her a glimpse of happiness.
It was her fault that he left her. She drove everyone she loved away.
She couldn’t think of him any longer, so she let her anger at Sheridan push Dylan from her mind for a bit. Grabbing her phone, she pulled up her text thread with Sheridan and sent a message before she could think it through.
Kelsi: Are you seriously married??
Immediately her phone rang with an incoming call from him. She accepted and raised the phone to her ear. “Don’t even think about lying to me right now. Are youmarried?”
He hesitated for a long moment. “Yes, I am, but how did you find out?”
“That’s your first concern? How I found out that you’re a lying cheat? No.” She cut his frantic pleas off as he tried to interrupt her. “Sheridan, youknewthat my ex cheated on me. How in any world did you think I’d be okay being the other woman? Seriously, what the actual fuck were you thinking? Does she even know that you’re running around on her in Oyster Shoals?”
“Kelsi, please, let me explain.”
She heard the desperation in his voice, but she was past it. There was no excuse for his behavior, nor what he had made herinto. She’d been planning to delegate him to the bench in the friend zone, but she didn’t want to have him on the roster in any capacity now.
“No, I’m done. Lose my number, and you bet I’m going to reach out to your wife to let her know.” She jammed her finger down on the screen, cutting off his weak excuses, and grabbed a pillow from the chair behind her to scream into.
“Feel any better?”
