Page 42 of The Logic of Loyalty

“I have friends there.”

“I just think⁠—”

She straightens her shoulders and tips her head up. “I’m going, Trev. One way or another, I will be there tonight.”

I groan and rub my hand down my face. “I don’t doubt that, Krista, but I do doubt the sanity of your decision.”

“I told your mother that you were taking me.” I close my eyes to the final nail in the coffin of my decision.

“Why in the—” I take a deep breath and let it out. “I’m hosting a party with my wife.”

Krista shrugs. “I just did it so she would get off my back about taking someone with me. She and my mother are like stupid little hens, always peckin’.”

I smirk because she’s right, but it quickly dies when I imagine trying to explain to my mother why I said no.

Paige, though?

“Okay, I can’t wait any longer for you. I’m out of here.” Krista grabs her bag, pockets her cellphone, and starts walking through the house to the door. Shit.

Paige has been avoiding me all night. She has friends here. It’s only a couple of hours.

“Fine. Wait. Let me grab my keys and wallet. We can take my car.”

I scribble a quick note to Paige and leave it on the bed beside her phone in hopes she reads it sooner rather than later, and head out to the darkening night sky, Krista following close behind. I’ll be home before she knows it.

Driving to a different city with Krista in my passenger seat makes me feel itchy and uncomfortable. Doing so while my wife is alone, hosting a party, makes me sick to my stomach.

I dig the small container of mints from the center console, where my wife stores them, knowing they help with my anxiety-induced nausea. The fact that thoughts of my wife are currently making them necessary isn’t lost on me.

I pop one into my mouth, chewing aggressively, and then startle as a hand brushes against my thigh. I throw a wide-eyed look at Krista as she holds up the container, shaking it lightly before snagging a mint for herself.

“It’s so sweet that you want to be here for me tonight.” She looks at me directly before adding, “I hope your wife didn’t mind.” Then she pops the mint into her mouth.

I turn back to the road. “She understood it.”

A lie.

The mistakes keep piling up, but letting her know I didn’t even tell Paige the whole truth feels like an extra betrayal. I’ll tell her, though. Tomorrow—after she sleeps off her hangover and we are snuggling up on the couch. I’ll tell her.

We pull into the street that leads to the rowdiest and trashiest bar in Edgewood, Pour Decisions. The neighboring buildings are boarded up with random tags and an assortment of crisp new posters alongside old, fading, and ripped ones line the sidewalk. In a strange contrast, the road is filled to capacity with the quintessential celebration of America’s birthday. Next to me, Krista is likely the most clothed woman. Nearly everyone else is either wearing a minuscule skirt with next to nothing on top, or simply wearing American Flag bikinis. I’m well aware that I’m probably the most covered man.

Discomfort fills me, but we’re here, and Krista is already climbing out of the passenger’s seat. She dashes to my open door and starts pulling at my arm, trying to physically remove me from the car. I allow her assistance, and she holds onto me as we head down the busy street and enter the bustling, rowdy bar. There are no posters advertising a band tonight, but Krista keeps half-turning around like she’s looking for someone. She releases me at some point, and I step back away from her side to dodge some random lady dancing in the middle of the pathway— to music only she can hear, because it sure as hell isn’t to the Hank Williams song playing. I smile at the image, imagining what Paige would say in this situation.

She’d probably join her.

The booming of the jukebox battles for supremacy against the roar of the growing crowd. The place is packed to the rafters. Every table is filled with rowdy revelers, and the dance floor is overflowing into the path between it and the bar.

We’re passing through the crush near the bar, people yelling to be heard over the music and one another. I wince as a woman shouts her drink order to her friend, ignoring the six-foot man directly in front of her. Sweat gathers along my temples from all of the ducks and dodges, trying to veer around the exchange while also still attempting to maintain a comfortable distance from Krista—distance she keeps finding ways to close.

Another crowd of people wearing impatient grimaces pushes their way toward the tables and dance floor. The peppermint from before is barely an echo on my tongue as I work to remain calm. Krista brushes into me again, and any other day, any other time, I would have ignored it. Tonight, though, it feels too intentional. Too obvious. A brush of her elbow against my stomach, her hip grazing my thighs, her fingers sliding around mine. It feels like a deliberate orchestration of moments. Each small contact makes me grow more and more uncomfortable in her company. It’s the first time, other than the party, that we have been around one another outside of work hours, and the results are uncomfortable and enlightening. My skin is tight and oversensitive, like it’s being hit with a million tiny bursts of electricity, and I find myself drifting into a fantasy to cope with the situation I have gotten myself into.

I’m home, snuggling on my porch with Paige, breathing in her warm, comforting scent. Her familiar weight is up against mine, her sweet face tilted up, bursting with love.

My daydream splinters when a group of women comes barreling past, cutting off our forward progress. Reality crashes into me in time for me to smash into Krista. I blink, and my hands are gripping her arms, holding her for just a brief moment until we regain our balance. We pause in the middle of the crowd. Our bodies are aligned, and she tilts her head back so our faces are close enough for me to see the golden flecks in her blue eyes. Her eyes widen, like she’s surprised by our position, but then a small, coy smile plays at the sides of her red-painted lips. Her hands drift up the front of my chest, and her lashes lower as she leans into me. I freeze, and my stomach swoops sickeningly. She wouldn’t … Do I drop her?

When her head angles to the side, her lips graze my cheek, then brush my ear. “My hero.”

I’m filled with equal parts relief and disgust. The wrongness of her hands on me and her body against mine fully registers, and I pull back. Her hand remains on me, though, and part of me wants to shove her away. Am I overreacting? I take another step back to increase our distance, but she follows. Hopelessness surges as my mind continues to spiral. Nothing about this is right. I shouldn’t even be here. This woman is too close to me.