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I stared at the trees in front of me.

“For lying?”

“I never lied to you.”

My head turned slowly. “What?”

He seemed to realize how bad it sounded once it was already out. “That came out wrong.”

“No. I think it came out exactly how you meant it.”

“I meant I never told you I was single, but I let you believe I was.”

I stared at him. “Yes.”

His eyes dropped. “And that was dishonest.”

“Very.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shook my head.

He, in fact, never gave me anything that told me another woman existed. He waited until I sat across from him dressed for a date to tell me he had a wife. I should’ve recognized then how dangerous Caleb was with technicalities.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Blair.”

I made it all the way to my car before the anger gave way to something else. I slammed the door behind me and sat there in silence.

My phone lit up with a message from my best friend.

Gabby: Are you alive?

I stared at the message. Then looked back toward his car. Through the windows, I could barely make Caleb out. I hated that I wondered what Ravenna was doing.

Was she home? Was she asleep? Was she sitting in a bedroom separate from his grieving children she’d never get to have? Did she know he was out

If she knows…

I shut my eyes. No. I wasn’t doing that. I wasn’t turning that into permission. I wasn’t going to become one of those women who built an entire relationship out of what a man claimed his wife tolerated.

I unlocked my phone.

Blair: Alive and on my way home. Long story.

Three dots immediately appeared.

Gabby: Did he have a girlfriend?

I actually laughed, then typed:

Blair: Worse.

I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat and started my car. On the drive home, I repeated the facts to myself. Caleb was married. Caleb was unavailable. Caleb’s marriage was not my problem. His unhappiness was not a vacancy sign. I wasn’t asking him to abandon a struggling woman because I was walking away.

That was what good women did. That was what smart women did. That was what women who had grown up watching their fathers juggle other women promised themselves they’d always do.