Page 1 of What Maple Heard

Chapter 1

Maple

“She’s hot in bed. Nothing more than that.”

I stopped walking.

The back porch door was ajar behind me, the way it always was at these parties when the kitchen got too warm and someone propped it open with the ceramic owl Cade kept on the counter. I had stepped outside for air, wine glass in hand, the Chestnut Ridge October dark laid out in front of me — leaves coming down in the garden below, the whole town smelling like cider and woodsmoke the way it did every fall.

I had not been expecting to hear my name. I had come out here because the party was loud and I was tired of smiling at Cade’s rich friends.

“She’s also a nice girl, Cade.”

That was Kyle.

I recognized his voice immediately. Kyle Griffin, Cade’s best friend, who had always been kind to me since the first night we met at a party at his place. He was always very warm, very welcoming, so it wasn’t a surprise he was vouching for me.

She’s also a nice girl.

Against my better judgment, I stayed where I was.

“Yeah,” Cade said. “She’s a great fuck— and she’s a great girl. Rare combo, I know.”

He laughed. Something in the laugh made me go very still, the way you go still when you step on something in the dark and aren’t sure yet what it is.

“But that isn’t enough.”

“Isn’t enough for what?” Kyle asked.

“To take her home to meet Mother.”

I looked down at my wine glass. It was very steady in my hand.

“So no wedding bells for you two? Kyle asked. “You both look so happy together. You look perfect, honestly.”

And Cade laughed again. This one was different. This one was drier.

“Come on, Kyle. You think I’d marry that kind of girl?”

That kind.

I kept looking at my wine glass.

“Girls like her don’t belong here. Mother would rip me apart. Dad would disown me. She’s good under the sheets and that’s where she belongs — until it’s time to pack up and move on.” A pause. “A Sonnenberg doesn’t marry a pole dancer.”

Both men laughed.

It was a very comfortable laugh. The laugh of two men who were not worried about being overheard. The laugh of two men for whom this was nothing — just a Friday night, just a party, just a conversation about a girl who didn’t belong there.

I waited for the laughter to stop.

“Does she know? That you’re just having fun with her?” Kyle asked.

“I don’t really care what she knows. If she’s decided in her head that we’re heading toward a proposal and a white picket fence — that’s her problem, not mine. I’ve been nice to her. And yeah, okay, maybe a few times when she’s asked about the future I went along with whatever she wanted to hear, just so we could stop talking about it, because I hate serious conversations with her. I hate serious conversations in general. I just like having a good time.” Another pause. Another easy, comfortable Cade Sonnenberg pause. “She’s the young, sexy girlfriend every man in his late thirties fantasizes about. And I’m in my late thirties. So.”

So.

I turned around and walked back through the porch door and through the kitchen and through the living room with its seventeen types of apple cider and the caterers in their orange uniforms. I picked up my coat from the arm of Cade’s sofa where I always left it. I found my purse, and I walked out the front door without saying goodbye to anyone.