I shoot her a smile I don’t feel and leave the VIP area and then the arena. I hit a clog of traffic a few blocks from the loft, which isn’t surprising, but totally aggravating. Los Angeles is not for someone with low patience on a good day. When I finally get to the loft I’m not shocked to find it empty. Her stuff is gone too. Even that silly plant, Palm-ela Anderson is gone from her perch at the end of my kitchen island. Fuck.
I run my hands into my hair, tugging on the ends in frustration. My phone dings with a text message and I move so quickly to pull it from my pocket I almost drop it. I hope against hope that it’s a message from Tenley, but it’s not. It’s a message from Gabby.
GABBY: Hey. I think I know who tipped Tenley off.
After her text there’s an attached screen shot. I click it without responding to her and enlarge it. It’s a picture of me and Gabby eating in New York and we look like we’re on a date.
GABBY: It’s from that dumpster fire of a site. Warren.
NASH: Shit. Tenley moved out.
GABBY: Does she still have her own place?
Right. Of course. She's in that rental in West Hollywood. I don't answer Gabby with anything more than a thumbs up and I jog back to my car. Once again the traffic on the streets of Los Angeles is trying to kill me. I could probably run there faster, and I would try if my leg wasn't sore. It takes me another twenty minutes to find parking because West Hollywood is permit-only in most places and Tenley's unit is smashed in between Sunset and Santa Monica, two streets with popular bars. By the time I get to her front door, it's almost midnight, but there's a light on through the gauzy curtains in the living room. To be honest I would knock regardless.
“Go away,” she calls about thirty seconds after I knock.
“No.”
“I’ll call the cops.”
“Oh well.”
It's silent. I wait five minutes and knock again. "Tenley, I will stay here all night if I have to."
“Sweet dreams!”
I grit my teeth, and then an idea hits me. I try the storm door handle. She didn’t lock it. I grab the handle on the oak door and twist. It’s locked, but I can tell it’s flimsy so I consider throwing my weight into it and hoping it gives. But then her landlord or a neighbor will probably call the cops. I move to the big living room window that faces the door. It’s huge, about two feet from the ceiling and one foot from the ground, and like everything else in the building, it’s old. I push on it and it slides open without so much as a groan. Whacking at the curtains, I step through the open window. And I’m promptly smacked square in the face by a flying throw pillow.
“Ouch! Fuck!”
“Intruder!” she yells.
“Tenley, I just want to talk to you. Please!” Another pillow clips my shoulder, almost knocking me over because it’s a bean bag filling. Or maybe it’s rocks? “Please stop!”
I try to find her but now there’s a light being flashed right at me. It’s so fucking bright. What the hell? I raise a hand to shield my eyes and another pillow glances off my forehead. “I said leave. We aren’t really married and I’m done pretending. Leave.”
“But we are really sleeping together and if that’s going to be done, I want a discussion,” I say as another pillow blocks out the right light as it sails toward me and I manage to duck.
She doesn't move the light fast enough and I manage to see her, standing by her couch, so I quickly hurdle over her crappy little coffee table and snatch the light from her hand. It's the heaviest flashlight I've ever held and the ends are jagged metal. I toss it onto the couch and a zap of electricity sparks from the uneven edges. My eyes widen. "What the hell was that."
“You just tazed my couch!” Tenley says and pushes me away. “Please go Nash.”
“I dare you to shut the hell up, stop trying to brain me, and listen!”
She opens her mouth but closes it immediately. I almost think I’m about to get my way until she marches over to the front door and opens it. “Our games are over.”
“I didn’t cheat on you.”
“You’re not fucking her?”
“No. I haven’t… in months.” She blinks and I can see a ripple of pain cross her face and it creates a wave of guilt in my heart. “Gabby and I had a bed buddy thing months ago, well before I realized I was married. But, fuck… not before I was married and I get that is a technicality that only you and I understand so this looks… it looks horrific and I am dying inside, Ten, knowing this humiliates you.”
She sniffs and sighs. “It doesn’t humiliate me. I don’t give a shit what the media says or what the WAGs think. So, you didn’t cheat? You aren’t, since you we started hooking up, involved with her emotionally or physically?”
“Never emotionally and not physically in months. Well before you and I got involved.”
“Then you didn’t cheat.” She says frankly and I almost feel relief. Until… “But you did lie to me.”
