“Yeah, that’s me.” I chuckle awkwardly, and she smiles, juggling the bags in her hands so she can reach her hand out to me. She has a firm grip and pumps my hand up twice before stepping back.
“Sophie, remember? We were in the same grade.”
I want to slap myself on the forehead.Of course.She’s changed a lot since high school, maturing that way that people do after they have kids.
“And Damon, right? My mom was telling me all about you,” I say to the small kid who’s tucked against his mom’s leg and looking up at me with suspicious blue eyes. He holds a spiderman figurine under his arm and I get a bright idea. “Hey, buddy. What if I told you Spiderman was here right now?”
He darts his gaze up to his mom and I hold back my chuckle at seeing his excitement. “Momma?” Damon asks sweetly, taking his gaze off his mom for a minute to look at me.
“You got him started now. I’ll never hear the end of it until Itake him to meet Spiderman,” Sophie says, rubbing her hand lovingly across the kids' hair.
I lower my voice, hoping to not be overheard by Damon. “My buddy Connor has a booth on the end, it’s a private security firm. He has a few of the other employees dressed up. I was Spiderman last year but I passed the gauntlet to someone else.”
Sophie chuckles, holding Damon’s hand in hers and looking around the area to find the booth I’m talking about. When she spots it, she shoots me a grateful smile.
“Well, it was nice running into you! Your mom said you and some friends will be over at her house on Halloween? If having a kid there is going to cramp–” I cut her off.
“Your kid isn’t going to be a problem, if anything my friend Hollis is going to love having someone with his same mentality to run around with. He’s a toddler himself.”
I watch her as she walks away, dodging past families and other stragglers. I feel a pang of sympathy for her, having to do it all by herself. But from our short interaction, it seems like she has it down to a science.
“Cute kid,” Raiden says, sidling up beside me. Close, too close. I can feel his body heat and smell the scent of his floral perfume burrowing itself into my senses. He painted his own face, the bright array of the rainbow curving delicately across his right eye and down to his cheek.
Fuck, why is he so perfect? Can’t he tell how much he’s fucking with my head?
“That’s Damon. Do you remember Sophie? That’s her and her kid.”
His eyes go wide for a moment as he whips his head to find them, but they’ve disappeared into the crowd. “I do remember, I haven’t seen her since graduation.”
“Did she not come to your wedding?” It’s out before I can realize what I’ve said and I flinch, tensing myself to prepare for his answer.
“No, no one came,” he says, melancholy painted all over his face. I reach my hand out to offer him comfort, and then realize what I’m doing. In public. Where anyone could see.
“I’m sorry.”
“You always offer up apologies as if these things are your fault.” He doesn’t look at me, instead his eyes are unfocused, staring off into the distance like he’s deep in a memory. “Josh told me he didn’t want anyone to come, he wanted it to beintimate.” Raiden mocks the word intimate and shakes his head, clearing his thoughts. “It doesn’t matter anymore, we deserved each other. We were both awful, but I couldn’t take it with him any longer. If I thought our relationship in high school was bad, our marriage was even worse.”
Why are we having this conversation right now? In this crowdedpublicplace. This isn’t the place for this conversation, but I can’t be trusted alone with him to have the conversation anywhere else.
“Then why did you do it?” It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times. I want to know why I wasn’t good enough. What Josh could offer him that I couldn’t.
“Because he made me feel like I could be loved. He didn’t loveme, he loved the idea of me, but I thought something was better than nothing. That was my first mistake.”
How many mistakes did you make?
“That sucks,” Raiden turns his head and his eyes catch on mine and a smile cracks through his stoic features. “I mean it, I couldn’t imagine what you’ve been through. And I remember how bad it was in high school… I just wish you would have talked to me.” And that’s the truth, because I could have reminded him how badly Josh treated him. I could show him all the ways he deserved to be loved.
“It was hard. Looking back on it now, there were a lot of things I hid from you because I was worried how you would react.” He drops the bomb on me as easily as if we were talkingabout the weather outside. My heart drops and the pitiful organ thumps sadly.
“What?” I ask, shocked.
“Can we talk about this later? I have my makeup done and this is a conversation that I should have without makeup on.”
“Okay,” I agree way too quickly. My mouth is not on the same wavelength as everything else. I shouldn’t meet up with him later. I should go home and invite my boyfriend over and we can watch a movie and eat popcorn on my couch. But as quickly as that thought comes, I shove it away. It’s shitty of me, but I need to know what secrets Raiden has been keeping from me for all these years. “You can come over to my apartment. I’ll text you the address.”
“I don’t have a car, sold it when I moved back in with my parents. I figured if I needed to go anywhere I could borrow mom’s car.” Well, that makes this plan even harder. If I could divert some of the blame, maybe my guilt won’t be so bad tomorrow. If I do this, I’m consciously making the decision to be alone with him, after everything. Knowing how my mind and body react to him. Knowing that I’m going into this with a boyfriend, and willing to risk my relationship with Liam.
“I’ll come pick you up.”
