A restaurant attached to the same hotel.
Two dinners.
At least, the amount looked like two dinners.
My stomach tightened.
I tapped it.
Daniel saw the change in my face.
“I told you.
I was alone.”
“Then explain this.”
He leaned closer.
For half a second he looked genuinely confused.
Then his expression shifted.
“Oh.”
I hated that word immediately.
“Oh what?”
“I ordered room service twice.”
“Twice?”
“I checked in before lunch.
I ate, slept for a few hours, ordered again later.”
I studied him.
“You expect me to believe you spent Friday hiding in a hotel room eating alone?”
“Yes.”
“That somehow sounds worse.”
“I know.”
“No, Daniel.
I don’t think you do.”
I sat on the edge of the sofa.
The anger that had powered me through the toy store, the dresses, the salon, the shoes and the lingerie was beginning to drain away.
What replaced it was heavier.
Clarity usually is.
“Where were you Saturday?” I asked.
“At the hotel until noon.
Then I drove around.
I went to a movie.
I turned my phone off.”
“Your manager called you.”
“I know.”
“You knew you were scheduled.”
“Yes.”
“So this wasn’t just lying to me.
You skipped work too.”
Daniel looked down.
“I told myself I’d deal with it Monday.”
I nodded slowly.
There was the entire problem, compressed into one sentence.
He would deal with it Monday.
The job.
The lie.
The hotel.
Me.
Daniel had spent years assuming consequences could be postponed until he felt ready for them because somebody else would keep life functioning in the meantime.
Usually that somebody was me.
My phone rang.
We both looked at it.
Brian Collins.
Daniel whispered, “Don’t answer.”
