Slip of the Tongue (Slip of the Tongue 1)

“Would he notice?”

His question physically pierces, like a little knife. Nathan knows the contents of our closet. He would notice if he cared enough to look. All my pulse points throb at once for what seems to be slipping through my hands more every day.

“I’m sorry,” Finn says. “That was insensitive. Please don’t frown.”

“It’s okay.”

“Why don’t you keep it at my place?” he suggests. “At least for a little bit.” Without waiting for my answer, he takes my hand. We cross the street. When we’re on the other side, he ducks into a cramped doorway of an apartment building. He pulls my front flush against his, drapes me back over his forearm, and ghosts his mouth over mine. His whiskers tickle my upper lip. “By the way, it’s blue,” he says. “My favorite color.”

I try unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. “So what does the color blue say about you?”

He studies all the parts of my face—mouth, nose, ears, chin—as if he’s memorizing it for an exam. Then his eyes return to mine. “It says I never had a favorite color until I met this girl in a coffee shop with eyes so blue, they’re almost purple, like the absolute final moments before sunrise. This girl stayed on my mind. When I saw things like a cluster of irises or a peacock at the zoo, I would think of her and say to myself, that is my favorite color.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Amelia pays the cab fare and meets me on the busy curb outside of Chelsea Market. Without even a glance, she swipes away the one wrinkle in her loud DVF wrap dress. “As I was saying,” she continues our conversation from the car, “Misty Burroughs is not a woman we want to disappoint.”

“Who do we want to disappoint?” I ask.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Watch it. As much as I like you, I’m still your boss.”

“Oh,” my tone and movements are flowery as I pull on the marketplace’s heavy door, “let me get that for you, Miss Van Ecken.”

She grins smugly. “That’s more like it, minion.”

Once indoors, I pluck my gloves off by the fingers and stick them in my pocket. Amelia unfurls her scarf. I automatically fix the static flyaways that stick to her collar.

“The coat was a good choice,” Amelia says, eyeing me. “Misty can probably pick out Burberry blindfolded.”

I unbutton the collar. It’s funny how quickly a person can go from freezing cold to burning up in this city. When Amelia called me this morning to say we had an impromptu lunch meeting with the on-fire online entrepreneur, I’d waited until Nathan had left for work to knock on Finn’s door.

“You wore me out Sunday,” he teased, still half asleep. Two days later, my body was also still stiff. He passed me my brand new, navy Burberry coat, then kissed me. “Sorry for my morning breath,” he said, and I sighed, “I wish I cared.”

“That’s why I picked you for this meeting,” Amelia is saying. “I don’t know when or where you got that coat, I’ve never seen it before, but you’re good at pulling things out of your ass right when we need them.”

“I assure you, this did not come from my ass,” I say. We cross the indoor, warehouse-style food hall packed with gourmet eateries, curated gift shops, and bookstores. “Where are we meeting her?”

“Friedman’s.”

The rustic restaurant is small, with glass windows and a door that opens to the market. “There’s not a lot of space,” I say.

“I know, but she insisted. She swears by their Reuben.”

I’m quite sure Amelia hasn’t looked at bread in years, but I’m a regular consumer. “I’m surprised I haven’t been here,” I say. “I’m always on the lookout for good sandwich spots.”

“I would’ve taken her to Cipriani, but word on the street is that she’s leaving her current firm because they’re too stuffy. So, this is me, going with the flow.” She looks around. We avoid the community tables and pick a four-top near the front. “Let’s set up. We have about ten minutes before she arrives.”

We clear off empty cartons and balled up napkins. Thanks to the lunch crowd, it’s noisy and warm. Amelia pulls out a file. I’m about to sit when I do a double take at the counter. Nathan is in line waiting to order. He throws his head back and laughs. Bumping into my own husband is strange enough, so it takes me a moment to notice he isn’t alone.

I shift my eyes to the woman next to him and recognize her immediately, even without her Quench Coffee apron and nametag. There’s no mistaking Gisele’s petite frame and long, black curls. Her youthful glow.

Heat races from my chest to my neck and ears. The din of the crowd becomes excruciatingly loud, the overhead lights searing.

“Sadie?” Amelia asks. “What’s wrong?”

My hand is clenched around the back of the chair. Nathan is hard to miss. He’s tall, lean, with a full head of beautiful, brown hair. But this can’t be him. He hasn’t laughed like that in weeks.

I tried to make him lunch this morning—I used to do it a few times a week before I was promoted—but his distracted “no thanks” felt like a slap in the face. Now, I understand. Why would he want his wife’s boring lunch when he could have the city’s best Reuben with adorable, perky Gisele?

I’d convinced myself I was paranoid. But am I really one of those wives who chose denial over reality? It hits me that I never truly believed Nathan could cheat on me. It’s too out of character, even with his recent distance. But here’s my proof, right in front of my eyes. And I can’t ignore it anymore.

“Excuse me a second,” I tell Amelia as I walk away from the table.

“I thought we’d wait for Misty to order—” The ringing in my ears drowns her out. My eyes are lasered on Nathan’s back. He sticks his hands in his pockets like a smug bastard.

“What are you doing here?” I ask as I approach.

Nathan pauses a second, then looks back. His face brightens, but he shuts it down immediately. “Sadie.”

Gisele turns around too. “Hey, Sadie. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I asked what you’re doing here,” I say to Nathan.

He thins his lips, gesturing toward the register. “Getting lunch. What are you doing here?”

“Meeting a client.” I wait. For what, I don’t know. A bumbling excuse? A confession? An outburst? This is new to me, but I know one thing—Nathan is a shit liar. It won’t be long before he breaks down. “You just randomly walked all the way here from work?” I accuse.

“It’s only a few avenues. I come here all the time.”

“That’s news to me,” I say.

“I’ve told you about this place lots of times, Sadie,” he says. “I’ve tried to lure you to meet me here with sandwiches, remember?”

“Bullshit.” The word sandwiches jumps out at me, but whether he’s actually mentioned this place before isn’t important. I turn on Gisele. “What about you?”

She shifts her doe-brown eyes up to Nathan. “I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”

“No—”

“Wrong?” I ask. I’ve known her almost a year. That’s almost a year she’s looked me in the eye each morning and smiled as if we were friends. “Answer my question. Why are you here?”

“Sadie,” Nathan scolds, shocked.

“Well, I’m not really supposed to tell,” Gisele says, hedging. As if she recognizes I’m about to explode, she talks faster. “They’re trying to keep it a secret until we know more, but we’re looking to open a second location here in Chelsea Market. You wouldn’t believe the foot traffic this place gets.”

I purse my lips. Convenient. She’s made that up on the spot and has the audacity to stare up at Nate as if he’s going to come to her rescue. As if he has all the answers. My blood boils at the way she innocently draws her eyebrows. I should win a medal for not wringing her neck. “How opportune. So you just happen to be here, walking around?”

“Kind of.” By her hesitation, she’s choosing her words carefully. “I mean, the owner and I just met with the property manager about a space a few doors

down. I decided to stay for lunch and ran into Nathan. He let me cut in line.”

“That’s true,” gruffs an old man behind them. “She cut.”

I return my glare to Nathan, who’s looking at me like I’m a science project he can’t figure out, and shake my head. “Liar.”

The area immediately around us gets quiet. Slowly, he narrows his eyes. “Excuse me?”

We stare each other down. Neither of us speaks. My heart beats everywhere—in my ears, my throat, my stomach. “You heard me,” I say, “you fucking liar. I’ve been tiptoeing around, trying to play nice for you, giving you the benefit of the doubt. But all this time—months—” My throat locks up, strangling my words. I can barely get them out. “I was right.”