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Scotty’s smile was flat and lifeless. It was no secret that he was smitten with the woman beside him, and that hurt. Scotty was a good kid—one of the best—and he didn’t deserve to be the third wheel in our triangle of tragedy. Every session we had together, her name came up. Every time her name came up, he couldn’t shake the grin, or fake indifference.
He’d told me he’d invited her to the east coast with him and offered her the extra room in his apartment, and all I’d been able to do was smile pleasantly as my heart teetered on a gravel ledge.
Guilt tackled me from every direction.
Clearing his throat, Scotty skimmed his fingers up Halley’s arm and stretched a hard-fought smile. “Yeah, we’re taking it slow,” he said. “Nice guys might finish last, but I like to think the wait is worth it.”
The wink he sent her made her blush, and my chest fizzed with anxious heat. Stupid, unjustified jealousy, paired with shame. I felt trapped. Four walls on all sides of me, closing me in, filling with water. The edging suffocation smothered reason as I slumped back in the chair and rubbed my forehead.
“Well, you’re welcome over any time,” Whitney continued, her attention shared between Scotty, Halley, and my own unraveling. “It’s great to see Halley making new connections.”
“She’s strong. A fighter. Watching her train was inspiring.”
“I can imagine.” Whit slowly panned her eyes over to me and that’s where they settled, her smile tight. “Why did you two stop training again?”
I tapped my foot under the table and folded my arms. “I just thought?—”
“It was my call,” Halley interrupted, noting my fidgeting. “I really wanted to focus on school and graduating with high grades. Mr. Madsen taught me a lot, and I felt like he’d given me all the tools and lessons I needed.”
Mr. Madsen.
And here I was worried that Halley might slip up, might look at me too long or say the wrong thing. But she was convincing, giving no indication that my dick had been inside of her last night and that I’d spent the better part of two years doing everything in my power to keep her out of my bed.
Only to fail miserably.
Halley had dopped by the studio yesterday after my evening training session, and then I’d fucked her in the workout room beneath the resistance bands. I was weak. Powerless. A victim to this unbreakable draw.
Before she’d left, Halley had handed me a photograph—the one I’d taken last month of her grinning ear-to-ear, her naked limbs tangled in my silvery bed sheets. There was no question of where she’d been or who she’d been with. And her flushed cheeks and sex-mussed hair portrayed exactly what we’d been doing.
I’d tossed it the moment I’d gotten home, burying it in my garbage can.
The risk was too high, the evidence too damning.
Whitney nodded, taking a small sip of wine as she mulled over Halley’s response. “That makes sense. I’m glad it all worked out.”
“It was a great experience.”
Conversation trickled on, veering from elaborate summer plans, to one of Whit’s social work cases. I did my best to follow along, to smile and react at all the appropriate times, but dark clouds manifested in my gut, spewing cold rain all over my insides. I needed shelter, but everywhere I turned another stormfront rolled in, shading my world in gray.
As the girls cleared off the table twenty minutes later, Whitney signaled me into the kitchen. “Help me with the dishes?”
My throat closed up as oxygen dwindled, and I was certain that if I attempted a verbal response, I’d sound like I just inhaled a gallon of helium.
Halley interjected. “I can do it.”
“No. Enjoy dessert with Tara and Scotty,” she said. “I made cherry pie.”
I caught Halley’s eyes for a heavy beat before pushing out my chair and sauntering into the kitchen like a pint-sized deviant on the brink of scolding.
Joining Whitney at the sink, I moved in beside her to help her dry off dishes as she rinsed them under the faucet with soap and a sponge. She sent me a sidelong glance while I stacked dinner plates into a pile and reached for another.
“I’d say dinner was a success,” she stated, looking back down into the dish bath. “The girls are happy. Scotty is a great guy.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, pretending to be immersed in my task while awaiting my sentencing.
Laughter sprinkled into the kitchen. I pivoted around to see Halley taking pictures of Ladybug running circles around her feet as the dog clutched a hambone in her mouth. Scotty tried to pry the bone away, but Ladybug held tight, her butt swishing furiously from side to side.
Whitney made a humming noise beside me, twisting off the faucet and shaking water droplets from her hands. She leaned forward on the sink, eyes aimed downward. “Comet?”