Several seconds passed before she sent back, “Sorry, can’t.”
Pushing his head back against the headrest on his seat and closing his eyes, Ethan smiled helplessly. Damn her and her games. Damn him for falling right into them.
He was amused, until he considered that Willow’s boyfriend would likely see her in that ensemble very shortly, and unlike Ethan, he would be able to properly enjoy it.
Touching his phone to stop it from dimming, he told her, “I?
??m not even going to be able to sleep tonight.”
She sent back another smiley, with another, “good.”
He wanted to keep texting the little vixen, even if—or maybe especially because—she was right there with her boyfriend. It was almost like he wanted her to get caught—which was kind of mean, but would significantly increase his chances of convincing her to come back over. Unfortunately, the cheater he was being paid to spy on required his attention, so he had to set Willow aside and focus on that.
“So, have you thought about filing for divorce?”
Ethan’s strained, polite smile thinned before disappearing altogether, and he suddenly remembered exactly how much he had never liked Tucker Mercado.
The man had a suave but smarmy look about him—slicked back chestnut hair, muddy brown eyes that Ethan had never fully trusted, and one of those dimpled chins that passed from generation to generation. Back in college, when he’d first met Tucker (and the woman who went on to become Tucker’s wife) Ethan had been certain Tucker had a crush on Amanda, but she’d always laughingly denied it.
He’d gone on to become a lawyer, and eventually married Angela, a sweet but unremarkable young woman who seemed to blend into the background wherever she went.
When Ethan and Amanda attended their wedding, he’d been stuck standing off to the side with Angela, watching Tucker haul Amanda out onto the dance floor. Even on her wedding day she had looked a little gloomy.
Probably because her brand new husband gazed at Amanda in a way he never gazed at her… despite the fact that Amanda was four months pregnant and married to Ethan.
He had never wondered before, but after everything that happened, part of him wondered if Amanda ever regretted picking him with so many other options on the table. Certainly Tucker, but she never struggled to attract male suitors. In college, before motherhood, Amanda had been intensely interesting—not that she wasn’t anymore, but she was older, more mature, and softened by motherhood. Back then she had been unapologetically compelling, and independent almost to a fault.
He hated to consider the toll he’d taken on her.
“We don’t know what’s happening yet,” Ethan said shortly. “I don’t really think this is the time or place to discuss that, do you?”
Nodding in acceptance, he said, “I suppose not. Can’t believe you let that one get away though, man.”
Abruptly standing, Ethan slapped Tucker on the shoulder and said, “Great catching up with you.” Then he headed off in the other direction.
The party was not what he would call comfortable. Amanda’s friends were over, and given all that had happened, their opinions of him had changed drastically. Once a prized “good husband,” now he couldn’t pass a group of women without feeling eyes on him, narrowed in solidarity-inspired disgust.
Angela Mercado sat in a fold up chair at the end of a table he’d set up earlier, all by herself, drinking a cup of punch and watching the kids tear through the house. She and Tucker had a smarmy, brunette, dimpled-chin little son running around, chasing after Alison with a foam sword. To her credit, Alison spun around with her own toy sword, blocked him, and knocked his right out of his hand.
Ethan had to smile.
Since he thought Angela might be one of his only allies, he sat down in the empty seat next to her. “How are you doing over here?”
Offering a mild smile, she said, “Fine. How are you?”
He shrugged. “Eh.”
Her smile widened a smidge, and she averted her eyes to the blue plastic tablecloth beneath her folded hands. “Sorry to hear about the separation.”
“Thanks.”
They fell into a companionable silence, which was certainly preferable to wandering around, collecting glares or even phony fake smiles from random guests. He understood he was the bad guy (and they didn’t even know the whole story), but Jesus.
Considering Angela wasn’t exactly gregarious and their backs were to the wall, Ethan extracted his phone to check his email, his eyes catching on the little green message icon, still blank. Normally he wouldn’t text Willow while he was with his family, but considering how many times per minute the guests reminded him with speaking glances that he was a cheating asshole, he felt rebelliously entitled to talk to her.
After scrolling through his new emails, he gave up the pretense of caring and opened his text messages. The picture Willow had sent him the night before was still right there—he hadn’t been able to bring himself to delete it—and he felt an unwelcome pang of longing.
“How’s your Sunday going?” he typed.