Page 67 of Wedge

“Not long enough.” It’s been seventeen goddamn years.

“So rude.” She laughs, unsteady on her feet as she stands too, following me half a step when I put distance between us. “I heard you were caddying now. Somebody said your name at the bar and I thought, no way, not my Stephen.”

“I am not your anything.” I check the ballroom doors on reflex, hoping Adrian’s still deep in that ballroom, terrified he’s about to walk through them at exactly the wrong moment.

“Oh, don’t be like that.” She reaches for my arm this time, and I step back fast enough that she nearly stumbles into the loveseat again, catching herself with a hand on my chest instead, palm flat, lingering. “God, you look good. Better than good. Better than before, even.”

“Vanessa.” I say her name like a warning, because it is one.

“What? I can’t say you look good? We were together for two years, Stephen. I think I’ve earned an opin-onion.” Her eyes go glassy and unfocused for a second, recalibrating, and then something sharper surfaces underneath the drunk, something almost hungry. “You always were better looking than Danny. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Stop.” It comes out in a voice I haven’t used in seventeen years.

“I’m just saying.” She sways closer, and before I can get another step of distance between us, she’s got a fistful of my shirt, pushing me back into the loveseat and she’s climbing, unmistakably, deliberately, into my lap, settling like she owns the space, like seventeen years and a whole life haven’t happened in between. Nothing sudden. No grabbing. No cornering. For one sick second I understand every word on that list.

“Vanessa! Get off me. Now.” My voice comes out sharper this time, both hands going to her waist not to pull her closer but to physically push her off, and that’s exactly the moment the ballroom doors open down the hall, Adrian’s laugh carrying ahead of him, easy and unsuspecting, walking out into a lobby that’s about to become my personal nightmare.

A man’s voice cuts through the lobby before I can even get her off my lap, sharp with fury. “Vanessa! What the hell?”

Her new guy, I realize a half-second too late, recognition landing wrong side up, the sponsor rep I’d seen earlier in the ballroom crowd. David Whitfield. Of course. Crossing the lobby fast, face gone dark red.

“Get off of him.” He grabs her by the arm, yanks her up and off me in one hard motion, and she stumbles, laughing like this is funny, like any of this is funny. “Jesus Christ, you’re drunk. You’re actually drunk, in public, at my company event.”

“Relax, David,” she says, stumbling toward me again, and I’m out of the chair in a flash. She continues, “We’re just talking…”

“You are done talking. You are going back to the room, and I’m calling my lawyer in the morning, and we’re done. I mean it this time. No more chances. Jesus, Danny tried to tell me.” He’s not looking at me at all now, entirely focused on hauling her toward the elevators, and she goes, still laughing, still saying something I don’t catch, heels unsteady on the marble.

I stand there for a moment, chest still tight, hands still half-raised from where I’d been pushing her off me, the fountain still murmuring behind me like nothing happened, and something cold drops through my stomach as the actual moment catches up to me.

I turn around.

The lobby is empty where Adrian should be standing. No laugh. No easy, unsuspecting walk out of the ballroom doors.

Just the elevator down the hall, doors already sliding shut, and I don’t know if he’s inside it or if he’s somewhere else entirely, running far the hell away from me and my baggage, and either way, I’m too late to find out which.

28

ADRIAN

Islam the bathroom door behind me, locking it and collapsing into the bathtub. The porcelain is cold through my good shirt, and the vent fan drones overhead like it’s trying to cover for me. I can’t breathe.

She was in his lap and she was all over him like she owned him, and he wasn’t stopping her, and I can’t breathe.

Everything I thought I saw in his face was a lie. A big fat, fucking lie.

Sobs come, wracking my body hard. This hurts so bad, no one has ever hurt my heart so bad. Why did he put her in his lap? He’s so strong, he could keep her away, but he let her. His lap was special, safe, and now she is in it and I’m alone. In this fucking bathtub. Alone. Always fucking alone.

Why the hell did I trust him?

Out in the room, the door bangs open hard enough to rattle the frame.

“ADRIAN!”

I try to make myself smaller, curl up smaller, so he can’t find me, whimpering. I should have hidden in the closet. This was stupid, I’m so stupid, so very fucking stupid. He is just here as a favor to Ben, and when it’s over, he’ll go back to his real life, with beautiful women all over him, and I’ll just be me. Small, damaged, ugly me.

The doorknob rattles, and I whimper. He’ll find me.

“ADRIAN! ARE YOU IN THERE, BABY?”