His phone, abandoned on the table, goes off again. The message on the lock screen is upside down but I can still read it. It’s from someone named Kate. His business partner? Or his sister? Or—
Oh no.
What if it’s happening again? What if it’s his girlfriend or something?
I hate it when dread crawls up my spine like a spider, its eight legs leaving tiny pinpricks of anxiety along each vertebra.
I stare at his cell like it has sprouted teeth. Suspicion nags my body, and I fight the urge to fling the phone into the breadbasket and pretend I didn’t read the text.
Trust, Maisie. That virtue all successful relationships depend on?
The virtue I extended to Andy right up until I found him and Lindsey tangled in my sheets.
Buzz.
Another message pops on the screen: u coming by later?
That feeling when intense fear swallows you whole and plummets your stomach to the floor is exactly what I’m experiencing right now, accompanied by intense thundering of my heart against my ribs like it’s trying to break free. The restaurant sounds fade around me—the clinking silverware, the murmuring conversations, the soft Italian music—all of it disappears beneath the rushing of blood in my ears.
I shouldn’t have eaten all that pasta. I think I’m going to be sick.
I glance over my shoulder at the bathroom entrance before my attention shifts back to Kyle’s phone. I know I shouldn’t snoop, but I can’t shake the feeling that my date is two-timing me.
Would it be wrong to confirm what I suspect? My fingers twitch with indecision.
The need to be certain overpowers my hesitation, and my hand grasps his phone and—
“What are you doing?” Kyle’s voice snaps from behind me.
I twist around so fast I almost knock over his water glass. “I’m sorry—I just—“
He snatches the phone from my hand like it’s a baby bird I tried to smother. “You have no business going through my phone.”
“I wasn’t going through it—“ My hands flap in the air like I can explain this away with an interpretive dance. “I just saw it buzz and thought—”
“You thought what? That you could spy on me?“ His voice spikes high enough to slice through the restaurant chatter. Heads turn. One guy from the booth across the aisle audibly slurps his wine.
My face burns. I want to crawl under the table and live there.
“I didn’t mean to snoop,” I say, though even as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re a lie. “I . . . the message popped up and . . . who’s Kate?” No point in dancing around it. I need to know.
He scoffs. “That’s none of your business.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You’re literally on a date with me and getting texts from another girl—and I don’t get to ask who she is?”
“She’s just a friend I work with.”
Like I’m going to believe that. “Do you guys work horizontally or vertically?”
Kyle’s mouth falls open. “Unbelievable.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It is.”
As we stare each other down, his jaw ticks, and my chest tightens—I know he’s lying.
“It’s called privacy,” he says, like I’m not allowed to ask any questions. “Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Right,” I mutter, glaring at him. “And honesty? Have you ever heard of that?”
