I swallowed roughly and straightened my spine. “I’m aware of the evidence of my estranged husband punching me in the face,” I said flatly. “Unfortunately, I’m also used to wearing such things.”
It was his turn to flinch now. As much as I wanted to be indifferent to the man who practiced his own indifference like breathing, I couldn’t. The simple flinch affected me. It told me things too. That he was not wholly devoid of emotion and not some sexy man-shaped robot.
But I had to keep going.
“My husband is a lot of things,” I said. “He is a sadist, a narcissist, a cruel human being, a bad father, even worse spouse. But he is not stupid. So I do not see him walking up to me in a grocery store and trying anything.”
Lance’s lips were a hard line. “This isn’t a discussion.”
And then, he did the unthinkable. The unforgivable. He snatched a handle of my purse, which was hitched on my arm, and he rifled through it for about one second and located my keys. A feat that I wasn’t capable of. It took at least five minutes of rifling through spare snacks for Nathan, wet wipes, old Chapsticks, coupons and whatever Nathan decided to put in my purse that week to find my keys.
I was battling between being super impressed and incredibly pissed at the invasion of my privacy. A woman’s purse was sacred.
Everyone knew that.
I didn’t have time to decide which emotion I was going to land on because my purse was hitched back on my shoulder, my body moved swiftly, firmly and somehow gently out of the way so Lance could slide into the driver’s seat and close the door.
I stared at the door for a long time, gaping at it and trying to figure out what the heck was happening.
The window rolled down.
“Get in the car, Elena,” Lance said, dipping his head down slightly so I saw his irises over the top of his sunglasses.
I gulped.
Really tried to muster up the courage to be decisive, sassy, say something like Karen might say to put an alpha male in his proper place.
But I did none of that.
I turned on my heel and got in the car.
The entire ride to the grocery store was silent.
Lance obviously liked it that way.
I did not.
I had a five-year-old. I hadn’t had a silent car ride since he was born.
It wasn’t uncomfortable for me, that silence. No, what was uncomfortable was being in such an enclosed space with Lance, alone, close to him, his hand moving back and forward to the gear shift, so close to my thigh that the air kissed it with his movements.
Or maybe I was imagining it.
Then there was the heat.
Partly due to the fact it was nearing a hundred-degree day and the car had no air conditioning. But that was not the reason why sweat was beading on my upper lip, temples, inner thighs, and my butt. Yeah, my frickin’ butt. Not enough publicity was given to this phenomenon that seemed to only affect women. In fact, not enough women even talked about this, because it was embarrassing as hell, but it happened.
Mostly on the very rare—read, two times—occasion I found the time to work out. But also in really hot restaurants, or if I was wearing cheap fabric—which was always—on a really hot day and forced to sit on leather seats.
Also, when I was really nervous.
As a rule, I didn’t really get nervous about things. Namely because in order to get nervous, you had to be going really far out of your comfort zone, going on a first date, in a job interview, starting your own business, public speaking, cooking dinner for the husband who beat the shit out of you if you didn’t do it right.
I stayed well within my comfort zone since arriving here.
I’d reckoned I’d ventured far enough out of it just by finding the courage to leave my cage cleverly disguised as just another McMansion in the suburbs.
Sitting in a car with Lance was so far out of my comfort zone I forgot what comfort even felt like.
Therefore my butt was sweating.
So in addition to worrying about Lance driving my crappy car without air conditioning, about being in this crappy car alone with Lance, I was worrying about having a stain of butt sweat on my white shorts when I got out of the car.
I’d chosen the shorts because it was hot, they were clean and because they made my legs look good.
Now I cursed myself.
What was I thinking? I never wore these. Because wearing white around a child was a recipe for disaster.
Also wearing them around a hot guy that made your butt sweat was also a recipe for disaster.
So that’s pretty much what I was thinking about the entire, stifling, panic-inducing ride to the grocery store.