There was a noise at the big open French doors, and I jerked my head up.
“Jillian?”
Was it her?
Was she going to forgive me?
Say she couldn’t spend a night without me?
That she was angry, but she’d forgive me?
“Oh, what the hell? No, no!”
Iranto shut the doors so fast I jammed my own finger on the frame.
“Get out of here, Christabelle! I don’t want to see you!”
She was on the other side of the doors, trying as hard to open them as I was to shut them.
“What the hell is wrong with you, bitch? Look at me!” she spat.
Oh, now there was the Christabelle I remembered too.
“No fucking way!” I snapped back. “How can I make it any clearer? I don’t want you, period!”
Then I heard the second-to-last person I would ever want to view this embarrassing scene.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s going on here, Mr. Mayor?” Cash’s deep voice rang out. “Can’t you two ever have sex the normal way?”
“Go away!” I hissed, trying to pry Christabelle’s fingers off the doorknob as she cursed loudly at me.
Then, to my horror, I sawmy wifethere too, her arm tucked in Cash’s.
And her face wasn’t angry. Or sad. Or disappointed. It was completely. . .uninterested. Bored. Scornful.
“Jillian, this is not what it looks like! I’m trying to keep herout!”
All the noise had only woken up Mari, and there was a loud crashing sound in her part of the B&B and her boyfriend Dale suddenly came staggering out.
“Decent people have to get up and bread fish in the morning! What the hell is going on?”
Christabelle began to quarrel with Dale, and I had to go out and insist that I was not having a midnight assignation. And in the commotion, Cash and Jillian slipped away.
It was only the threat of trespassing that got Christabelle to leave.
“Oh, Frankie. . . I know you can’t stay away from me. . .”
How shameful. She was just as fucking nuts as she ever had been. How embarrassing to know Ihadbeen flattered by her attention.
Jillian.
What was she doing with Cash? Anger and regret burned through me. I couldn’t let him take advantage of my massive fuck-up. BecauseIneeded to fix it with Jillian.
I couldn’t sleep at all, tossing and turning, pacing the floor.
Until Jillian forgave me, I was going to be an utter wreck!
I showed up to the coffee shop the next morning bright and early, just as my wife was walking up the front steps.
