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“I was young, naive,” I explained. My fingers began to tingle as the fog I’d deliberately placed around those memories cleared up just a little. “This was…. God, nearly ten years ago. I was twenty-five, she was twenty-four. We’d only been together about ten months before I decided I wanted to marry her.”
I don’t know what came over me. I hadn’t spoken about her for at least eight years, at least not to that level. I’d barely told my parents a word about her in the time we were together, and when I was ready to announce our engagement to them, we’d ended it. There hadn’t been the time to speak about her, or the want after that.
“Her name was Annie,” I added.
“You were engaged?” she asked. Her knife and fork came to a rest on her plate, every bit of attention trained on me. I tried not to let it overwhelm me.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t always the shithead your father makes me out to be. Not that he’s wrong.”
Her lips pressed together into a fine line as she watched me. I couldn’t tell if she knew it was difficult to talk about, but considering I was doing my absolute best not to break the table and run, it must have been at least a little obvious. “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”
I swallowed the pool of saliva sitting on my tongue. “She slept with my brother.”
Her eyes went wide, her lips parting just enough for her to breathe through them. “Oh my God.”
“This was back before he had a wife and kids,” I clarified. But in truth, it didn’t make it any better, any more excusable. The anger was still there, buried under the rubble. “Her true colors surfaced when I found out. Told me that she was just securing a spot one way or another as a member of my family.”
Lottie swallowed and reached one shaking hand out to her glass of wine, leaving a little lipstick stain when she sipped it. “She was in it for the money.”
“I’m sure that was the main reason, yeah. I think she’d seen the attention I was beginning to get and thought there was a good chance of me slipping away to someone else.” I pushed down the bile creeping up my throat and forced myself to cut into my steak. “She created her own downfall, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up?—”
“It’s fine,” I said, cutting her off before she could disparage herself. “It’s good to talk about these things. I just haven’t in a long time.”
Lifting my fork to my mouth, I savored the flavor and the texture of the meat, letting the juices dance along my tastebuds before sliding down my throat.
“I swore off relationships after that. My name was getting out there more and more since I’d started working for my father, and my gut told me that any woman who approached me was just looking for either sex or money. So I gave them sex. Benefitted both of us. But otherwise, I kept to myself.”
Lottie blinked at me as if she’d seen a ghost, as if something I’d said had thrown her. “So… this,” she started, motioning to both of us, “isn’t normal for you?”
As much as I wanted to deny it, there was no way out of it. I’d run from it too many times, and it was bound to come out anyway. I wouldn’t be able to hold back for the next few months. “No, Lots, it’s not normal for me.”
She nodded to herself, just a microscopic movement that I wouldn’t have caught had I not been watching her. “Okay,” she whispered, the single word not directed at me in any sense. “I need to tell you something.”
As if like magic, everything suddenly felt lighter. “You don’t have to give me a story because I gave you one,” I joked, cutting off another piece of steak and popping it into my mouth.
“No,” she said, her tone dropping. Her face had gone pale, one hand tucked under the table and the other fiddling with the horseshoe charm on her necklace. “I mean there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you and I haven’t. And you deserve to know.”
She’s just in it for the money. I couldn’t stop the intrusive thought—it was always there, always screaming at me when it came to feelings, but it had taken longer than usual to make its appearance this time. Maybe it was the tone of her voice, or maybe it was the way she looked so guilty.
“Okay.”
“You’ve probably begun to put some of the pieces together,” she said, shifting her weight in her seat. “It’s about my ex.”
Her ex. I knew enough to know that he was a piece of shit, whoever he was. Brody had made that much clear. He’d broken her heart. “Okay,” I repeated.
“I don’t like to talk about him. He was an asshole in a million different ways, but we were together for two years before everything went down,” she sighed, her voice so quiet I could barely hear it.
The candles on the table flickered with my heavy breaths. I wanted to know, of course, but there was a part of me that knew I’d want to rip off his head at the end of this.
“I met him during my final year at college. I was interning at a ranch on the other side of Boulder.” Her eyes went glassy as if the memories were playing before her. The hand on her necklace tightened. “My dad had met him a handful of times. I know he blames himself for telling me that he was a good guy, but there’s no way he could have known. I didn’t see it for far too long.”
“Lottie, if this is too hard?—”
“No, it’s fine.” She took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. “I mean, it’s not, but I need to do this. I need to talk about it and tell you about him. You deserve to know.”
“Alright.” I couldn’t deny that my curiosity was piqued.
