“There he is.” Ryan stood up from his bar stool when he saw me and gestured for me to sit.
I hesitated for only a moment. Not enough for him to sense my wariness, I hoped. “Random of you to want to get together just the two of us,” I observed as I slid onto the stool.
He nodded, screwing up the side of his mouth like he wanted to say something. I had to resist tapping my fingers impatiently on the bar. After all, it wasn’t his fault I’d only answered his call because I thought he might be telling me he was out with the rest of the girls. And Willa.
I kept playing that night back in my head. Looking at it from every angle. Obsessing over the way she’d pushed me out of her house. The way she’d hedged, choosing her words too carefully, catching herself before she revealed too much. It was keeping me up at night, and I knew the only remedy was to see her again, to look into her eyes as I fucked her and make sure I saw only truth there. But I couldn’t do that if Ryan Howell was going to be all squirrelly about getting a beer together. “So you said you needed to give me something?” I prompted him, my mind a million miles away.
Ryan took a deep breath. He’d always been a decent dude. Loyal, like me. He’d been skilled on the football field but didn’t have the desire to lead that would take him places. It was hard for him to put himself out there, which was why I was careful not to interrupt him when he was trying to gather his thoughts.
I just wished he’d gather them a bit faster.
“So it was the weirdest thing,“ Ryan finally said. Super casually. Too casually. I was instantly on the alert. “You see, I was over at my aunt’s house.” He checked to see if that meant anything to me. “You know, the one who stole my grandpa’s place from my parents?” I nodded, remembering the sordid scandal of it all. “Well, she’d asked me to do some work for her, and even though I knew it pissed my mom off when I talked to her, I needed money… fast.” He cleared his throat. “She was trying to get ready for the painters to come over and needed me to move all this heavy ass furniture. So I was lugging her giant ass vanity from one side of her bedroom to the other, and this man’s wallet fell out from behind it.“
My blood ran cold.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled it out. The faded brown leather was sickeningly familiar. “Isn’t this your dad’s?“
He flipped it open.
“Huh,” was all I could say as I stared down at it. There it was. Everything. His license, complete with our address. His business cards. His credit cards. The faded and outdated pictures of me and my mom. The stilted family photo that had gone out with the Christmas cards. Fred Grant, Frederick Grant, Freddie Grant.
There was no denying what was right in front of me. But I had the strongest urge to do just that.
“How in the ever-loving fuck did your father’s wallet end up at my aunt’s place?“ Ryan wondered.
"I have no idea,“ I lied through gritted teeth. I had every idea.
“Anyway, here.” He slid it across the bar. “I bet he’s probably looking everywhere for it. Going crazy.”
“He hasn’t said a thing.”
“Huh. Weird.”
Shame burned the tips of my ears. He knew. He wasn’t saying anything, out of deference to our friendship. But he knew. And if Ryan knew, then Naomi would know soon enough. Then Avery, then the whole group, then the whole fucking town. The secret was out. The shame my mother and I had tried to hide for so many years, the secret we’d kept hidden away. It was all for nothing. One fuck up, and my father had exposed his lies. And in doing so, he exposed all the rest of us too.
Ryan cleared his throat awkwardly. “So yeah. Anyway. Where’s Willa tonight?” He slid a bottle of beer across the bar and into my hand.
“It’s not like we are attached at the hip,“ I grumbled into my beer, then took a long swig. My father’s wallet was burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to run outside and throw it right into the creek.
“What she up to?“ Ryan asked.
I set the bottle down and peeled back some of the wrapper. “She said something about having to go chaperone a birthday party.“
“Sounds fun,“ Ryan deadpanned. “Guess that’s why you were free to meet up, huh? Don’t know why she wouldn’t want you to tag along.“
“Willa doesn’t really like to mix business with pleasure,“ I said, trying to keep my tone light even as I was remembering how she’d pushed me out of her house.
But it nagged at me. The way she kept me at arm’s length. She knew I wanted more, knew that’s what I needed. Why would it be a problem that I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could? Why didn’t she ask me to tag along and help chaperone? I would’ve liked to see her brother with his friends.
But she hadn’t even thought to ask.
No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that ever since we returned from the cabin, she’d put me right back into the box she’d always kept me in and shoved me to the back of the neatly labeled shelf where she kept all the parts of her life sorted by importance.
It had been days since that ragged, desperate moment in her kitchen when I’d needed her so badly and she’d pushed me away. Days since she shoved me out the door with my pants still unzipped. Our calls had been short and not so sweet. She’d been distracted. Like she was hiding something.
What was she hiding?
Being suspicious of her was such an easy habit to fall back into. I didn’t want it to be so easy. But all the reasons why I shouldn’t trust her were right there.
“Look, man, if it’s bugging you so much, go find her,” Ryan advised. Clearly, he was getting uncomfortable with my brooding silence. “Spending my Saturday night with a bunch of little kids sounds like hell to me personally, but that’s Willa for you.“
It sounded like hell to me, too. Why would she even need to be there? It was a birthday party, and it’s not like Jake was two.
Unless there was no birthday party at all.
Ryan looked up sharply as I stood up. “You have a sudden hankering for birthday cake?“
“What are you talking about?“
“You’re going to find her now, aren’t you? I can tell, I got pretty good at reading your face out on the football field, Cooper. You’d be a really shitty poker player.“
I grimaced. “I thought… Maybe she could use a hand?“ I supplied lamely. Trying to make myself sound like something else other than the suspicious boyfriend I was. “Hey, thanks for uh… finding this for my dad.”
“No problem. It’s fine, you can go. Go get your woman.”
My woman. Was that what she was?
I thought so. But did she?
You knew she’d do this. That nagging thought that had been lurking in the back of my brain suddenly lashed out like a striking snake. Once a cheater, always a cheater. The wallet in my pocket was all the proof I needed that I’d always been right about that. You knew you couldn’t trust her, and you did anyway. Just how naïve are you?
I slapped a twenty down on the bar and rushed out the door.