The Pool Boy (Nashville Neighborhood 2)

All the years we’d been together, and I hadn’t known he was capable.

My sharp gasp yanked the men’s attention to me, and then they both issued their own horrified gasps. They couldn’t move fast enough, tripping over the pants wadded at their ankles as they hurried to separate and cover themselves.

“Erika,” Clark blurted out, as he jerked up his pants. “What are you doing here?”

I back pedaled, unable to speak or rip my gaze away. As soon as Derrick had his pants up, he raced to zip his fly, and my gaze zeroed in on his wedding band. I’d met his wife a few times at the annual holiday party.

My mind was disconnected, but my body activated on the desire to flee, to try to outrun the emotional pain that would arrive any moment.

“Oh, fuck. Wait,” Clark pleaded.

I didn’t. I reeled around blindly, dashing for the elevators.

If I’d been able to register the desperation in his voice, it might have been heartbreaking. “Please, Erika. I’m so sorry.”

He caught up to me right after I’d slapped the down button, forcing me to wait to finish my escape. I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I focused on the carpet at the edge of the elevator doors and listened for the chime to announce its arrival.

By the time I boarded the car, he was crying. The first time I’d ever seen him do it. The story spilled from him in a mess of words as we rode together down to the lobby, him trying to explain how he wasn’t bisexual or gay. He claimed he didn’t like men, and neither did Derrick. That they’d become friends and bonded when they worked out together. They’d tried to fight off this thing between them, but their connection was too powerful.

He sobbed that they hadn’t wanted to fall in love with each other.

“Love?” I repeated in horror. “How can you be in love when you’re married to other people?”

It was the stupidest question.

Wasn’t I already aware marriage didn’t mean a thing to some people? Like my father. He’d had at least two affairs that my mother knew about, before leaving her for my stepmother. He’d probably had more. My father had always suffered from a wandering eye. Even now, I doubted he was staying faithful.

Clark hadn’t been anything like that. He never looked at another woman once we were together. I’d thought we were rock solid in that department.

I sank my teeth into my bottom lip and let my eyes fill with tears as he begged for forgiveness. Didn’t he know it was way, way too soon for that? I stood motionless and numb as he planted his face in my chest and shook with emotion. His fists curled around the edges of my coat, holding me to him, before he stilled. He drew back just enough, so I could see the puzzled look on his face.

He was wondering what the hell I was wearing.

I swallowed down my embarrassment. I’d come here tonight with a plan of seduction, completely unaware my husband was in love with someone else. He’d made me an oblivious fool.

A tiny voice cried out in my head that he’d done this to me on my birthday.

My voice was empty because I’d become a husk. “I loved you.”

“I know,” he whispered. “I loved you too. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

It wasn’t the first lie he’d ever told me, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last either.

I trudged toward the house, carrying the thick envelope along with my thoughts about the fallout that ensued. I’d done my best to stay civil, at first. We agreed via a short exchange of texts that he’d find somewhere else to stay for a few days, and I’d contact him when I was ready to talk.

But Clark couldn’t even give me that.

I’d come home the morning after my birthday from my best friend Jenna’s house to discover him packing his things in boxes, and the Fender American Standard Stratocaster guitar leaning against them.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I was too emotionally exhausted to control myself. “You don’t even know how to play.”

But I did. When we’d met in college, I’d been pursuing my dream of becoming a singer-songwriter. Clark had proposed to me onstage one night after my weekly set, saying my music had captured his heart, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life listening to me.

Clark straightened stiffly, and when his hand flexed possessively around the neck of the beautiful instrument I’d used to create my favorite songs, I felt his fingers on my throat choking me.

His tone was sharp and definitive. “This was a gift from my parents.”

“Yeah,” I snapped. “A wedding gift to us.”

I’d found his parents’ present both romantic and encouraging. Ultimately, I’d failed in my dream, but his parents had been more supportive of my journey than my own family had been.