Page 28 of The Logic of Loyalty

Why would you be late to our own party?

Why were you with her, even after you promised you would do better?

Why would you leave without talking to me first?

Am I supposed to share these expectations? Shouldn’t he know? He also has no idea that I’m pregnant. My head falls into my hands, and I let out a long, low groan.

“Paige? Is that you?” His voice moves closer with the question, but I’m still. I’m quiet. His outline is faint in the cloudy night until a flash of lightning fills the room, illuminating his ragged form in the middle of the room.

“Yes.”

He’s already seen me. We made eye contact the moment that lightning forked across the sky. Thunder rumbles, loud and quick.

“Where were you, Trevor?”

He runs his hand through his wet hair and huffs out a breath. “Why are you still up? It’s late.”

His deflection makes my chest hurt. “Where were you after you left tonight, Trevor?”

He walks closer to me, but freezes only a few steps away. “Do we need to do this right now, hun? I’m tired, and I’m sure that you are⁠—”

“Jesus! Where the fuck were you?”

I keep my shaking hands shoved in my lap and watch him. His indrawn breath before he releases it and reaches out for me. Whatever he was going to say is lost, then his scent hits me. Or her scent.

My stomach rolls the second it hits me. “Don’t.” My voice is a low hiss. I can’t yell. I know that my voice carries, and the last thing I need is for Jacob to hear us arguing at two in the morning after his father just arrived home with the scent of another woman on him. Rotting fucking roses.

My hand goes to my bile-filled mouth, and I leap up and run from him, carried by pure instinct and desperation to reach the nearest bathroom, where I stop to kneel at the porcelain throne. I’m immediately and violently ill. I heave and lose track of everything around me except for the cramping of my stomach, the nausea, and the sweat that lines my forehead and above my lip.

Cool hands hold my hair back and soothe my neck. I shake him off in revulsion when his smell permeates my daze. “Get away from me.”

“What, Paige? I⁠—”

I gag. “Seriously. Now. Get the hell away from me. You smell horrible.”

“I smell⁠—”

The rest of his words are cut off by my second round of aggressive retching. I swat at him behind me, hoping that he takes it as the extremely obvious instruction that it is. Get out.

He listens, and the dichotomy of disappointment and relief is an uncomfortable truth that sits heavily on my mind.

I’m not sure how long I’m sitting here before the fresh scent of his shower gel overtakes the other smells of the room.

“Paige—”

“Don’t.”

“Baby, what⁠—”

“Just leave me alone, Trevor. I don’t want you here right now.” I do. I want him here, but I don’t.

He leaves, and I lean toward the toilet for what I hope is my final bout of sickness before picking myself up and trudging back to the bedroom. The room is quiet, the heavy rain a melancholy backdrop to our silent standoff. The bedside light glows, casting Trevor in a warm light where he sits at the edge of the bed.

I resign myself to the conversation we finally need to have.

“You left me today.”

“Let me explain⁠—”