Allison was talking to my mother in the kitchen filling her in on where she had been all of these weeks, when I emerged from the bathroom.
My mother didn’t look at me or let on as to whether she knew we were hiding in Callie’s room together. I passed them in the kitchen, went through the sliding door to the yard and joined Caleb and Stephanie who were thankfully still talking.
When I sat down, Caleb got up and thanked Stephanie for her advice, sneaking me a smirk, as I knew he would.
“Where were you all that time?” Stephanie asked.
“I was in the bathroom, sorry,” I said.
“Huh…that was an awfully long time to be in the bathroom.”
I lied. “Yeah…sorry, having issues.”
Technically, my hard on was an issue that needed to be dealt with.
Stephanie’s eyes lingered on me and I got the impression she knew I wasn’t exactly telling the truth, but she proceeded to change the subject.
“What are we doing tonight?” she asked.
I felt like an asshole and really hated lying. I silently vowed to never lie to another woman again once I could get out of this situation today. But now that Allison was back in my life, I needed to break it to Stephanie that we couldn’t date anymore, but this was not the right place or time. I just prayed she didn’t try to touch me or kiss me in front of Allison again.
“I don’t think I am going to be able to do anything tonight,” I said.
Stephanie raised her eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I have a client pitch I am way behind on and forgot about an early morning meeting, so I’m going to need to call it a night after we leave here.”
“I could just hang out at your apartment, make a late dinner and stuff while you work,” she said.
She was not going to make this easy.
Before I could come up with another excuse, Allison reentered the yard and I could see Stephanie’s eyes fixate on her. Allison didn’t make eye contact with me and went straight over to sit with Callie.
I swallowed nervously, somehow sensing that Stephanie knew something.
When Stephanie got up to refill her wine, I looked over at Allison. To my horror, I spotted a gargantuan hickey on her beautiful neck.
Fuck.
I tried to signal for her to move her hair over it, but she wasn’t paying attention. Callie then moved behind Allison and said, “I want piggy back.”
“Callie, you’re too big for that,” I heard Allison say.
Callie could care less and began climbing on Allison’s back.
“Ugh…you’re gonna crush me, girl,” Allison laughed and lifted up off the chair with Callie now climbing on her back.
Stephanie reappeared and sat down next to me with her legs crossed, sipping her wine, but not saying anything. We sat silently watching the show that Allison and Callie were putting on.
Callie was laughing hysterically enjoying the ride Allison was giving her around the yard, when all of a sudden she started sniffing Allison’s neck.
“Smell…smell…smell like Cedric. Allison smell like Cedric!” I heard Callie shout as she laughed and sniffed Allison’s neck.
This stunned me for two reasons. One: Callie had never used words that well, describing how something smelled. Two: I was fucked.
Stephanie turned to me slowly and glared at me with daggers in her eyes. “You know…I must be the dumbest fucking woman on the face of the Earth. When she walked in the door, I overlooked the fact that your jaw dropped at the sight of her. I overlooked the fact that her name was the same as the one you shouted out in your dreams last night. I overlooked the fact that you were making googly eyes at her throughout lunch and I even overlooked the fact that she disappeared with you and magically emerged from your mother’s house with a hickey in the shape of the state of Florida. But that…that…what your sister just said over there…just about seals the deal, doesn’t it?”
I was speechless. There was no way to deny it, so I decided to concede to the truth. “Stephanie, I am sorry.”