She rolled off him and sat up on the bed, the worn, white undershirt riding up her back, and he reached over, pulling it down carefully, his fingers caressing the skin of her back, missing the touch when she pulled away and stood.

“That was a mistake.” She found her panties—those damn red panties—and bent over to pull them on, his eyes dropping to her skin, her ass, the arch of her back.

“You need fresh ones.” He reached down for his shorts, feeling suddenly naked on the bed. “Those are a little wet.” He smiled, and she seemed to miss the joke, standing up and turning to him, her arms crossing over her beautiful breasts. He suddenly realized the comment that he’d ignored. “It wasn’t a mistake.”

“It was. It was—” She threw up her hands. “Stupid.”

He followed her lead, getting off the bed and stepping toward her, her hands coming up as if to hold him off, and he stopped. “Is this something you do? Go psycho after you fuck someone?”

She flinched as if she’d been slapped, and he wished, in a heartbeat, he’d kept his mouth shut, his brain-to-mouth function around her permanently broken. Maybe he’d had others speaking for him for too long. Or maybe she was the type of woman who drove a man insane. “I don’t… fuck people,” she seethed, her face darkening, the strength he lov—respected coming through. “And I’m not psycho. Forgive me if I don’t want to cuddle with my costar afterward.”

“Costar?” He laughed away the jab he felt hit his gut. He couldn’t take rejection, not right now, not with Nadia so close, so recent. Maybe DeLuca was right. Maybe his rules of celibacy were about more than Cole’s reputation. Maybe Summer was right, and this was a mistake. “High on yourself, aren’t you?”

She stepped to a dresser, white and sagging, set against the wall. “Wow. You really are an asshole.” She pulled open a bottom drawer and bent over, pulling out a pair of shorts, and he didn’t know how this had turned so wrong. Maybe his after-sex social skills needed work. He hadn’t needed those skills during the last six years with Nadia. And the experiences since… those girls had been too interested in taking a selfie with him to have a conversation. Especially not a conversation like this.

“Summer…”

She yanked up her shorts, and her nipples were visible through the thin top. He stared, she caught him staring, and her cheeks flushed pink, her arms stiff as she jerked open another drawer and pulled out a T-shirt.

“Did I miss something?” he asked, trying to chase down the root of this problem. “Did I do something to piss you off?”

“You’re married.” She spat out the words and pulled the shirt over her head, his eyes getting one last feast of her torso before it was covered by a bright pink celebration of the Class of 2002.

“My wife was married when she fucked half of Hollywood.” The response came out hard and sour and she turned to him, her eyes blazing, and he knew, before her mouth opened, that she’d taken it the wrong way.

“Is that how your marriages are over there? She cheats so you cheat? Everyone goes home happy and even?”

She suddenly wasn’t the only angry one in the room and he stood up slowly, taking a deep breath, trying to control his anger. “I never, from the moment I met Nadia, kissed another woman, slept with another woman. Not until she served me divorce papers. That might have been how she operated, but not me.” He turned to face her, his voice level. “You’re concerned about me being married? I’m as ready to be out of that as anyone. And trust me, my activities are the last thing on my wife’s mind.”

“I’m sorry that you got hurt. And I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions. But you are still married. And it seems like you’re awfully quick to just jump in the sack to look for another.” She moved out of the bedroom, her bare feet quiet as she burned a path to the kitchen, her hands still angry despite her apology, her movements quick as she pulled the coffee maker out from the wall, ran water into a pitcher, and opened and slammed more cabinets than seemed necessary for a cup of coffee.

He followed her, his words trying to catch up with her thought process, and find the place where she got such a wrong impression of him. “Look for another wife? Babe, that’s not what this is—”

“I am not your babe.” She pulled a lime green mug out and slammed the cabinet door so hard it broke, falling crooked off one hinge, and she stared at it, blinking rapidly, her mouth pursed tight. “I don’t even like you.”

“I—” Everything he said was coming out wrong, the emotion radiating from her body nerve-wracking, and he stepped back, putting his hands on his head. I don’t even like you. That didn’t hurt when it came from a stranger, from critics, from fans who didn’t get autographs signed. When it came from her, it was different; it stung. Stung so much that he stepped back, needing the distance.

“Please leave, Cole.” Her words were broken and took his heart along with them, a jumbled mess of regret rolling down a hill iced with dislike. That was the problem with what they had just done. Because no matter how great it had been, it hadn’t been done on a bedrock of friendship or compatibility or respect. It had happened between two people who didn’t even like each other.

He followed her wishes, for one of the first times in their clusterfuck since meeting, and turned away, walking through the small living room, out the front door, and off her porch.

When his tennis shoes hit the dirt, he began to run. And it wasn’t lost on him, as he moved farther from Summer and closer to home, that running seemed to be the only thing that he had mastered. Running from any hints that he missed in his marriage with Nadia. Running to Quincy, away from the temptations that LA held. Running from the blonde behind him, in her warm and cozy home, from her eyes that saw through him and didn’t like what she saw.

CHAPTER 57

My bright future in Quincy ended the night of my rehearsal dinner. It was being held at the Chart House, which, in Quincy talk, means More Money Than Brains. But Scott’s family was the Thompsons, who were one of Coca-Cola 67, so special events required a certain amount of fanfare, and the wedding of their only son was one of those Events. The rehearsal dinner, along with all of our wedding bills, were being quietly paid for by the Thompsons. They didn’t have to be quietly paid for; everyone in town knew that Mama and I had nothing, and they had everything, but it was still one of those things that nobody talked about.

I found out about Scott and Bobbi Jo two nights before the rehearsal dinner. I should have just cancelled it, sat down with Scott like a rational adult and broken it off. But I wasn’t rational. I wanted to teach them a lesson. All of them.

I still remembered late in the evening, the dinner’s ruination well underway, the sound of running steps, clipping along the Chart House’s wood floors, the thirty-some people running for the exit. At that time, I had stayed in my seat, my hand on my champagne stem, and smiled. I had toasted my future, or lack thereof, and taken a final sip.

I thought of that as I watched, from the living room window, Cole Masten run down the long drive, his stride never hesitating. And unlike Scott, his head never turned to look back.

This time, I didn’t smile. Had I had champagne, I would have spit it out.