One call and the house was theirs. Another call and a blond decorator with a faint Eastern European accent appeared with a binder containing measurements of every room in the house. That was how he managed their life. Matt dialed a number and another hard thing got easier. A decade later, it was Rachel who made the phone calls, because all of it was theirs, not just his. That was supposed to be the deal. Matt contributed money. She gave time, attention, and every hour of her day in return.
“Let’s think rationally here.” His voice was slow and deliberate, like he was taking cues from Shania. “We’re not normal people. I can’t be seen checking into some hotel with a suitcase. Hell, I can’t be seen in public alone without some asshole with a camera asking where you are. Neither of us wants that kind of attention.” He gazed at the ground, the window, everything in the room but her. This had turned into a strategy meeting. She might as well have been a member of his campaign.
Rachel’s stomach heaved, threatening to empty its contents on the rug. She pushed off the bed with a hand over her mouth, and Matt stopped midsentence, eyeing her warily. The nausea faded, but the sight of him poised to sprint away made her eyes prickle with tears. He really didn’t care about any of it. Not about her or their marriage.
She stalked past him, yanked open the door, and was in the hallway before he sputtered her name. “Rachel! What are you doing?”
“You want to stay, stay.” She didn’t hesitate on the stairs this time. The house was empty. Everyone had likely smelled the rancid air and fled to avoid an awkward goodbye. Her fury intensified as she stared at used cups and paper plates strewn over various surfaces, waiting for the cleaning service she’d scheduled to come in the morning. She should cancel it. She should leave the house so wrecked he wouldn’t want it anymore.
“It’s almost midnight,” Matt shouted. “Where are you going? We’re not finished talking. Rachel!”
There was a liquor bottle in a red velvet sack on the gift table. She grabbed it on the way out the door. A hard gust of wind slammed into her face, smothering her briefly before it eased and she could breathe again. She could hear Matt’s footfalls against the foyer tile. He matched her pace but didn’t go much faster. He didn’t want to catch her.
CHAPTER TWO
Hiding in a public bathroom stall wasn’t how Nathan Vasquez usually dealt with awkward social scenes. Although, to be fair, the bathrooms at the Oasis Springs Drive-In weren’t the worst place to spend your time. There was something cool and a little creepy about how the sterile walls glowed under the buzzing fluorescents. The apple-shaped air freshener plugged into the wall made the room smell like industrial soap and cinnamon. If it weren’t for the toilet paper under lock and key, he could have been in someone’s Williams Sonoma’d, rarely used guest bathroom.
Nathan knew that the night’s downward trajectory was partially his fault. A boring night out usually called for one of two options: make things interesting or leave. Only assholes suffered in silence, which was exactly what he was doing, sitting on a decorative pouf that he’d stolen from the sitting area, with his legs propped up against the door, ignoring his best friend’s text messages to draw on a hot dog wrapper against his thigh.
Dillon: Are you hiding in the shitter?
It would be nice to think he was evolving—that turning twenty-six had triggered some adult gene lying dormant all these years. But he’d always hated conflict, and hiding was his newest avoidance tactic. That could count as evolution if you squint.
Dillon: Come on Nate. Where are you?
Nathan had sketched a large cheeseburger with razor-sharp teeth gnawing on the leg of a rough self-portrait. The movie playing a few hundred feet away had ramped into high gear with raised voices battling blipping laser guns. He drew lips on the burger before he responded to Dillon’s text.
Nathan: Third stall on the left.
It took a few minutes for Dillon to find him, which gave Nathan time to add a pair of walking french fries to the scene. The sketch took a darker turn, with the fries reaching for Nathan’s likeness, slobbery drool streaming behind them.
“You’re not jacking off in there, are you?”
Nathan unlatched the stall door. “I just needed some air.”
Dillon frowned and glanced at the wall of urinals to his right. “Cool. Cool. It’s just uh… the girls keep asking about you.”
The girls were two college students Dillon had picked up at the gas station earlier that evening. He’d arrived at Nathan’s apartment with his arms draped over their shoulders, grinning as though he’d won the lottery instead of saddling their night with the awkwardness of two strangers who were old enough to drink but young enough to make the whole thing embarrassing.