“I’d go to jail?”
“You knew I wouldn’t fuck you sober, so you waited until I was shit-housed and got what you wanted.” I shook my head as I picked up my keys and wallet off the table. “You feel better now, Katie? Was it everything you’d imagined? I didn’t disappoint, did I?”
She began to shake as I walked toward her, stopping just a few feet away. “I didn’t want you then, I don’t want you now,” I said, watching detachedly as her chest heaved with silent sobs. She was staring at my chest, refusing to meet my eyes, and that pissed me off even more. “You were a lousy fuck, Kate. I won’t be back for seconds.”
I stumbled back a step as she fell to her knees, and I clenched my jaw as she began to vomit, her sobs no longer silent but echoing throughout the room.
She’d done this. She’d come to the hotel room I’d shared with my wife, on the anniversary of her death, and had fucked me blind when I was too drunk to know what the hell I was doing. My guilt, shame, and anger were a potent mix, and at that moment I could have thrown her out the window.
“Clean that shit up,” I told her as I stepped over the mess she’d made. “I’m not paying for them to clean the carpet.”
I caught sight of a pair of dirty mugs lying on her side of the bed as I passed by and vaguely remembered the two of us drinking, but I didn’t stop as I made my way out of the room. Fuck her.
I had to get out of there. I had to get as far away from that hotel and the woman inside it as I could. I’d gone there to remember my wife—to have one night when I could just feel it all, just take it all in. I’d wanted to remember the way she had smelled, and the way she’d looked at me, and the way we’d seemed to move together seamlessly. I’d wanted to have one night when I didn’t have to keep it all together because I had four pairs of little eyes watching my every move. I’d wanted to get drunk, and be miserable, and hate the entire world for making me a widower at twenty-nine years old.
Instead, I’d made a huge fucking mistake, and now the only thing I could think about was the way Kate had moved beneath me, the way her back had arched so dramatically as I’d pressed inside her from behind. I could only feel the soreness of my throat and shoulders where she’d bit and sucked at my skin. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way I’d left her on the floor of that room, sick and scared, and undoubtedly sore from the things we’d done the night before.
I hated myself, and I hated Kate, and I had no idea how I’d ever look at her again without feeling like I was going to burst out of my own skin.
She’d fucked me over, but as I pulled into my driveway and flipped the visor down in my truck to see the marks on my skin from her mouth, I knew what I had done was far worse.
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want us to drive you to the airport?” I asked my foster mom as she hugged the kids good-bye. She was so good with them, but I’d known before Sage was even born that she would be. Someone who took in troubled teenagers for no other reason than to give them some semblance of a chance at life—and never once raised her voice when they were complete assholes—was sure to be the best grandma a kid could ever ask for.
“No reason for you to drag the kids all the way to the airport just to drop me off and drive right back,” she assured me, smiling at Gunner, who was in my arms. “Kate’ll bring me. She’s got an appointment downtown today anyway.”
“On a Sunday?” My stomach clenched as Kate pulled into the driveway and I waited for her to come greet the kids. I hadn’t seen her since I’d left her in that hotel room a week earlier, and I was dreading the moment we had to interact. I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know how to apologize when I was still so angry at the part she’d played in that clusterfuck.
“Well, she’s got the kids all week,” Ellie said, pulling my eyes away from Kate’s car. She still hadn’t climbed out. “She has to take meetings sometime, and it would take her hours to get down south if she waited until you got off work at night. Traffic here is terrible.”
“Thanks for coming to stay,” I murmured into Ellie’s hair as she wrapped her arms around me. “We love having you to visit.”