“Soph?” Percy says.
I clear my throat. “Tonight’s tasting menu looks stellar,” I say. “Especially the chicken.”
“Yes, I think that’s what I’ll have,” Scarlett says. Her strawberry blonde hair is soft around her face, and I suddenly see it spread out on a pillow, like it had been when I walked in to see her beneath him. “We actually have some fun news to share, don’t we, Perce?”
Percy looks at me with his sheepish smile. It’s the one I’d used to find endearing. Now it looks like an act, an attempt at playing Peter Pan. He’s the boy who never wanted to grow up.
“We’re having a baby,” he says.
My mind goes blank. The sound of the restaurant fades away, turns into white noise. Isaac’s hand tightens around mine and I feel it from somewhere far away.
“Congratulations,” someone says. Him. He says it.
Percy’s watching my reaction. And he sees it when the blow lands. The final insult, the perfectly crafted blade. He knows exactly where it’ll slide in between my ribs.
He’d wanted kids. I did too, but not yet. Not while my career was doing so well. He’d never been okay with that, and my mother-in-law had commented on it all the time, making it clear I was the one in the wrong.
Failure,I think.This is just one more arena I failed in, and they never let me forget it.
“Sophia?” Scarlett asks. There’s a note of sympathy in her voice, but I can’t tell if it’s real or fake. “I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear. We’re really happy for you two, you know, both of us. And we hope that going forward there’s a way for—”
“Sorry, will you excuse me?” I say, getting up from my seat.
“Of course,” Isaac says. He starts to stand as well, and maybe we could leave, maybe there’s a better way out of this, but I can’t see it. I turn on my heel and flee both the past and the present, heading toward the safety of the restroom. I barely make it before the first tear falls.
22
ISAAC
Sophia weaves through the tables, her steps a beat too fast to be casual. All three of us watch her flee toward the back of the restaurant.
“Oh,” Scarlett. “I really hope we—”
“It’s okay,” Percy says. His eyes are on Sophia and he takes a step forward. “I’ll go see if she’s okay.”
I stop him with a hand on his shoulder. “No, you won’t.”
His eyes narrow. “I was her husband.”
“Yes,” I say. “Was.Now you’re just the ex, and I’d suggest you remember that.”
I leave the two of them there, standing next to the table that had been ours.What a small man,I think. His motives are hidden behind a wafer-thin facade. He still cares for her, in whatever twisted, sick way that might be, and he wants to make her jealous. Wants to test her, again and again, to see if she still cares.
He’d seen us here, and unlike his social climbing girlfriend, he hadn’t wanted to mend relationships. He wanted to set them on fire.
The bartender gives me a dirty look when I crack open the door to the women’s bathroom, but I ignore him. Sophia’s standing by the sinks. Her hands are braced against the marble, back hunched, and she’s crying so hard her body is shaking.
I close the door behind me. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. The beautiful face is marked with tears, and all because of the asshole out there. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Sorry. I just…”
“Don’t apologize.” I wrap my arms around her. She resists for a second, but then her chin comes to rest on my shoulders. “That was a shitty thing to tell you like that.”
It makes her cry harder, with sobs so strong they wrack her body in my arms. I tug us closer to the door and fit my foot against it, keeping it shut for everyone else.
“Sorry,” I murmur again. Her hair smells good, and I breathe it in, staring at the lime-washed wall across from us. How could a man behave like he had? Committing the crime, not owning up to it, and then continuing to torture the person he’d already hurt. He’d acted entitled back in school, if I remember correctly. Anthony had been in the same grade as him, even if I hadn’t, and the few things that filtered back to me over the years had never been positive.
I run my hand over Sophia’s back, up and down, feeling the curve of her spine and the shaking of her body.