“We won’t be late tonight, honey,” he tells her.
“You better not be, or you’ll be sleeping in the spare room.” She kisses Isaac on the cheek. “Great to see you, Isaac, McCauley. Ron”—she eyes him warily—“I’ll see you later.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He sighs as she walks off, her rear end swishing from side to side. When she’s out of earshot, he whispers, “She likes to tie me up. It’s the hottest thing ever.”
“Please.” Isaac rolls his eyes. “Do not put images in my head of you with a black ball in your mouth. I would like to enjoy any future sex I might have.”
Ron takes off the apron. “She’s gone, right?”
McCauley’s gaze tracks Jennifer. “She’s not coming back.”
“Good. We can get back to Luke.”
“Right.” Isaac opens a bottle of water and takes a big swig. “It was about six months in, and Rowe’s dad was going downhill fast. That’s when Luke up and announces that he’s leaving her.”
“For Sally Ray,” Ron informs me pointedly.
McCauley grabs a dog and drops it into a bun. “But that wasn’t the worst of it.”
My eyes flare. “There’s more?”
“Oh, there’s more,” he confesses.
When no one speaks, Isaac points his water at Ron. “Go on. Go ahead and be the person who has to stop Pane from storming across the street and destroying Luke.”
I take the last sip of my beer and drop it in the recycling bin. “Guys, you’re not understanding what’s going on between me and Rowe.”
The men pause before bursting into laughter. Isaac wipes tears from his eyes. “Do you even know how you look at her?”
“Like love is a dove in your heart,” Ron says.
“What the hell does that mean?” McCauley asks.
“You know, he looks at her all lovey-dovey.”
Isaac slaps my shoulder. “Don’t worry, she looks at you that way, too.”
“Whenshe looks at you,” McCauley says.
Another pause before the three break up into laughter.
Annoyed, I grind out, “Are you going to tell me or what?”
Ron exhales a breath, shaky from chuckling. When he speaks, it’s just above a whisper. “Rowe got pregnant.”
The world stops spinning, and red fills my vision. She got pregnant? With Luke’s baby? Did he force her to— Stop, Pane. Juststop.
I let out a slow, steadying breath. “Then what happened?”
Isaac looks around to make sure no one’s listening to us. “From what I heard, she lost the baby.”
Ron drops his voice. “But that’s not the worst of it. The worst was that—”
“What’re y’all gossiping about?”
Rowe has magically appeared in front of us, hair pulled back in a French braid, her cheeks red, and her face scrubbed clean. She’s wearing wedge sandals and a strapless sundress that drifts softly around her knees when she walks.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of her.
