If I break eye contact now, I might lose my footing entirely.
“Bullshit,” I bite out.
“I thought so too,” she says, voice sharp now, all defense and old fury. “Until I signed up for a dating service and they refused me after running a background check.”
A harsh laugh rips out of me before I can stop it.
“A dating service,” I repeat, shaking my head like maybe I heard that wrong. “Jesus fucking Christ, Esme.”
“What?” she fires back. “You thought I’d just sit around and die of old age waiting on you to realize you made a mistake?”
“Fat fucking chance there, Sweetheart. But why bother with this now? When has being married ever stopped you?” I spit out cruelly.
The second the words leave my mouth, I know I hit something deep.
Her face goes still.
Not blank.
Still.
That dangerous kind of stillness where pain and rage freeze over so cold they stop looking like either one.
“You never listened to a word I said back then, but I never cheated on you, Benjamin,” she says, each word clipped and measured and controlled within an inch of its life. “And I am goddamned tired of defending myself. Honestly? I don’t even care what you think anymore. I just need this to be over with so I can get on with my life!”
“Yeah?” I step up onto the porch, boots ringing against the wood. “That’s funny, because from where I’m standing, you never had a problem getting anything on! In fact, I recall you spending a whole lot of time getting it on with another man while I was deployed.”
“You’re the one who made him come around the house! Paul was your friend, not mine!” she shoots back instantly. “YOURS! I didn’t even know he felt that way?—”
“Didn’t know?” I bark out a laugh that tastes like old poison. “He had you as his fucking wallpaper, Esme.”
That lands.
Her eyes widen, really widen, and whatever I expected to see there—guilt, annoyance, some slick, well-practiced lie—I don’t.
I see shock.
Real shock.
“I never knew that,” she says, softer now.
“Yeah?” I take another step closer. “Well, he told me you were with him. That you had an affair while I was gone. He sent me clips and that fucking video.”
“That’s all a lie?—”
“He showed me the goddamn video! Not to mention a FUCKING SEX TAPE!” I roar.
That one finally cracks the whole moment open.
She freezes.
Not because she’s caught.
Because she’s confused.
“You think I did that? That I made a-a sex tape with your best friend?” she asks, and now her voice is barely above a whisper.
My chest tightens in a way I do not appreciate.
