“Take it back,” he said.
She blinked. “Take what back?”
He realized how gruff he sounded and tried to lighten his tone. “The rug. Someone takes something from you, don’t let them get away with it. He shouldn’t call all the shots. Seems like he messed up, not you.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but you don’t know what happened. What if it was me?”
“What if you both fucked up, but he fucked up the most?”
That earned him a smile. “I think you’re just trying to make me feel better.”
She had it half-right. He also liked the way talking to her made him feel. Interesting. Capable. Like he was worthy of influencing her mood. “Is it working?”
“Yes.” Her eyes roamed his face. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Rachel’s eyes shifted down to his neck tattoo, and she rubbed the same spot on her throat. “Did it hurt?”
“Yeah,” he said, watching her fingers. There was truth in the way a woman touched herself. Rachel barely grazed her skin, like anything more would leave a bruise.
He must have been staring. She stood quickly and tugged at her dress. “It’s getting late. I should go.”
Nathan stood. “Are you okay to drive?”
“It’s a block away. I’ll be fine.” She walked backward with the hoodie zipped to her chin and the boozy soda cup peeking up from its depths. “That was your car, wasn’t it? The ’69 Camaro?”
“You know your cars?”
She kept walking. “A perk of aging. I know lots of things. Good luck getting your car back.”
He gestured toward her feet. “Good luck finding shoes.”
She rolled her eyes. “I have shoes.”
Nathan grinned. “See there? Things are looking up already.”
CHAPTER THREE
It had been a mild summer, so her roses were still blooming. Rachel sat on the ground in front of her house, staring up at large bushes of bright pink flowers the size of her fist. The scent reminded her of her wedding day. Or maybe it was the night of her senior prom, when Thomas Dunn had pinned a white rose to her breast with sweaty palms, the shoulders she’d always considered broad surprisingly small in his father’s tuxedo. They had gotten high in the limo and stopped at McDonald’s, ordering chicken nuggets and fries. He’d gone down on her in the parking lot before they finally dragged themselves into the gym.
Thomas had cried the day she left for college. At eighteen, she didn’t know how rare it was for a guy his age to show so much emotion. She had avoided his calls for the next two months, smugly certain that real men never made snot bubbles or borrowed their daddy’s tuxedo for a date. That was one of the last things she’d said to him. “It’s time to grow up and be realistic. We were always going to end this way.”
Now she knew reality was overrated. Reality was being rewarded for more than a decade of loyalty with a traitorous dick on your phone. Reality was protesting your prenup with a front yard sit-in surrounded by bushes, thorns, and God knows what else. It was sipping a half-empty cup of whiskey and wearing a stranger’s sweatshirt that you kept sniffing for reasons you should probably ignore.
“Rachel?” Matt’s voice was a sharp whisper. “Are you out here? Rachel?”
She tucked a rose behind her ear, took the lid off her soda cup, and swished it around. Matt stopped a few feet away, hands outstretched, as if he’d found her on the ledge of a building. He had changed into the monogrammed robe and pajamas she’d bought him for his birthday. “Where have you been? You look terrible.”
“Good thing you’ve found a replacement.”
Matt’s concern evaporated. “I was worried,” he chided, as if a broken curfew was their real problem. She would have laughed if it wasn’t so depressing. Rachel lowered her head and willed it to stop spinning. She could hear mulch crunching under Matt’s shoes as he took hesitant steps in her direction. “Are you okay?”
A flash of headlights made her look up. A red Corolla slowed and parked in front of their house. Matt tensed and pivoted like a thief weighing the odds of escape. Everyone in town knew that car. It had appeared at almost every troubled household in the area. Mia Williams worked for the police department as a victim’s advocate. On paper, her job was to assist uniformed officers with domestic violence calls to help de-escalate situations and make sure the victim’s rights were protected. In reality, she primarily dealt with retirees calling in complaints about their teenage neighbors trampling expensive landscaping.