Don’t put that in my head. You know what that would mean to me.
Thatch
I also know what that would mean to her. And now she’s trying to leave.
His text came just as I made it to Mallory’s door, and it had ice settling in my stomach. But just as fear and anger started growing, I shook off the thought and tapped out responses before pocketing my phone.
Me
We didn’t do anything. She isn’t pregnant.
Drop it.
I fought to regain control of my racing thoughts and chaotic pulse and toxic, conflicting emotions as I took slow, steadying breaths. Right there. In front of her door. Bag of food in hand.
Once I was back in the same headspace I’d been in when I’d pulled up, and once I wasmostlysure I wouldn’t demand to know if Mallory was pregnant as soon as I saw her, I rapped my knuckles against the door.
Worry, uncertainty, and the smallest whisper of hope battled in my veins as I waited for the sound of the lock, my pulse jumping once it finally came.
And then the door was opening, and all thoughts of her potentially being pregnant, along with my argument just to getin the door, died on my tongue when I saw her. Tall and lean, with subtle curves, and so beautiful it hurt...and not at allher.
“Whoa . . .”
Mallory’s expectant expression abruptly fell into a look of stunned apprehension when she noticed me standing there, but I shot out a hand to stop her from slamming the door in my face.
“Leave,” she demanded in that tone that was like nails on a chalkboard for me.
Stiff. Formal. Withdrawn.
“Are you wearing makeup?” I asked as I pushed the door open with barely any effort, letting me know she hadn’t been actively trying to keep me out. My brow furrowed when my gaze finally drifted to take in the rest of her. The delicate gold chain around her neck that dipped beneath the material of the low-cut—“Are you wearing a dress?”
“No one can say you aren’t observant,” she muttered, then hurried to shove me back when I took a step inside her condo. “What are you doing?Leave.”
“We need to talk.”
A stunted laugh bubbled past her full, glossed lips, cracking that infuriating façade. “We?—”
“Are we staying in?”
If I hadn’t been so focused on the fact that Mallory was wearing a dress and makeup for the second time in all the years I’d known her—one of which had been the day we eloped—I would’ve noticed the person walking up beside me. As it was, my head snapped to the side to find a man standing a few feet away from me, looking at Mallory in a way that had my free hand curling into a fist.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just thought we were going out. But I’m more than fine with staying here,” he hurried to add, making Mallory’s unrecognizable look and thisstranger add up in a horrifying way as he continued like he was nervous. “But you could’ve told me, I would’ve liked to pay.”
He held out a hand toward me, his voice dropping to an embarrassed whisper. “Can I still pay?”
I then remembered I was holding a bag of food.
He thought I was bringing them food . . . for their date.
My glare slowly drifted to Mallory, to the uncertainty flickering through her defiant stare, before settling on the man beside me again.
“What you can do is forget you ever met my wife,” I seethed as I shoved my way into the condo and slammed the door behind me.
“Gray,” Mallory snapped, her tone and expression almost identical to how it’d been this afternoon: whispers of shock and doubt bleeding into her fury—that fracturing fortress.
“This better be a joke.”
“You bulldozing your way into my condo?” She forced a huff and tried reaching around me for the handle, but I blocked her. “No, you seem to be making a hobby of it.”
