He followed her into the house and up the stairs.
She headed into the master bathroom and closed the door behind her, then he heard the shower running. He donned his PJs and got into bed to wait for her. She came out of the bathroom two hours later. Without a word, she slid into bed and turned on her side, ignoring him completely.
He didn’t want to push her. With difficulty, he fell asleep.
When he woke in the morning, she was gone.
20
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Caroline blew her nose for the three hundredth time and miserably tossed the wadded-up tissue onto the hotel room floor with a pile of others. Her eyes were swollen shut from crying. She was beginning to feel horrible about leaving Jace without telling him. The only excuse she had was, she hadn’t felt like she’d been in her right mind at the time.
In the wee hours of the morning, after trying to scrub the night off her body, she had to have space. She couldn’t breathe, and she felt that if she didn’t get some kind of distance, she’d go insane.
She’d known Jace would try to talk her out of it, so she’d simply slipped out.
It’d been well after two a.m. before Jace’s breaths had finally evened out, and without much thought, she’d dressed, packed a small bag, and left the house.
She hadn’t had a solid plan and had sat in her car for a good hour before she’d turned it on. She finally decided to head to a hotel. But first, she made a pit stop at a convenience store for supplies, like extra tissues, Visine, and some comfort food—BBQ potato chips, Skittles, and Coke. Soda pop was something she almost never drank, but it was nostalgic, and she needed that comfort more than anything right now.
So, here she was, wallowing and feeling awful—almost worse than she had right after the act itself. But not quite. She needed a quiet place to cry in peace, clear her head, and try to figure out how her marriage was going to work moving forward.
Just thinking about that brought on another crying jag.
She plucked up several more tissues and dabbed at her eyes. They were so raw, light dabbing was all she could do.
How was she going to get through this? How were they going to get through this?
She stared at the ceiling, trying to rein in her tears, but they leaked out anyway and trickled down her neck. There were so many things to consider. Her mind raced, and she couldn’t stop it. She wished, for the first time in her life, she had a prescription for a sleeping pill.
Being knocked out of her misery would be a blessing. Sleeping would be divine, even though she knew she’d have to face this mess again when she woke up.
The ceiling was no help.
It was perfectly white and smooth with no cracks.
Nothing to distract her.
She’d been fighting so many feelings over the last three hours, the biggest being guilt, of course. But not only guilt for letting the thing happen with Pete—but guilt about wanting it to happen again! The pleasure had been so intense and so good!
She fisted her hands and pounded them into the covers like a child having a tantrum. “Why did we go over there?” she howled to the perfectly white ceiling. “It’s not fair! I don’t want Pete’s hands on me. I want my husband. He’s all I need!” The ceiling didn’t answer. “Right? Isn’t that how this all works? You fall in love, you get married, you vow to be true to each other, and then you sit back and enjoy your life. Right? Answer me!”
Almost on cue, her phone chirped.
Then, almost immediately, there was another chirp.
That meant a text. She turned toward the bedside table that held a clock, lamp, and her cell phone.
It was 6:03 a.m. Jace must have woken up and found her gone.
She did not want to pick up the phone. “I’m not ready!” she cried, grabbing another tissue. “Jace, I love you, but I’m not ready to talk about this! My brain is still too scrambled.” She took one of the bed’s many pillows and placed it over her head, hoping to block out the noise and the reality.
It didn’t help.
There was another chirp.
And then another.
Then another.
It wasn’t going to end until she let him know she was okay. Resigned, she tossed the pillow aside, likely onto the pile of dirty tissues, and reached for her phone.
Her eyebrows raised when she saw Piper’s name in the window, not Jace’s. She swiped her phone open. There were ten separate texts all in a row:
I’M MAKING YOUR DARLING HUSBAND SOME COFFEE. (COFFEE CUP EMOJI)
HE LOOKS AS MISERABLE AS I’VE EVER SEEN HIM.
HE THOUGHT U WERE HERE AND CAME BANGING ON THE DOOR 15 MINS AGO. HE WANTS TO CALL THE POLICE, BUT I CALMED HIM DOWN.
U THERE? I KNOW THERE’S NO WAY U ARE SLEEPING. (ZZZ’S EMOJI)
I GET IT. HE FILLED ME IN. UR IN PANIC MODE. TEXT ME WHEN U CAN, SO I CAN LET THE POOR MAN KNOW UR ALIVE AND NO ONE HAS MURDERED U AND DUMPED U ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.
THEN I’M COMING TO GET U.
DON’T FIGHT ME.
DUDE, I WILL FIND U. THIS TOWN AIN’T THAT BIG. (THIN-LIPPED EMOJI)
TEXT ME BACK.
RIGHT NOW.
Caroline bit her lip. She knew Piper was dead serious. If she didn’t text her back, Piper would start calling every hotel in town until she found her.
“Dammit,” Caroline swore. Not only was she not ready to talk to her husband, she was definitely not ready to talk to her best friend either. If Caroline wanted to get snarky and technical, she could blame Michael for bringing up his and Piper’s sexcapades to begin with. If they hadn’t so openly shared their intimate details, Caroline would be blissfully ignorant.
Her phone chirped again.
IF U BLAME ME FOR THIS, UR DEAD MEAT.
Followed by another text.
YOU HAVE 7 SECONDS BEFORE I START TRACKING U DOWN. AND WHEN I START CALLING I’M TELLING THEM UR A METH ADDICT WHO NEEDS AN IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION. I’LL HAVE UR ROOM # BEFORE U CAN SAY FUCK A DUCK. (DUCK EMOJI)
Caroline sighed. Piper knew her so well.
“Fine. You win, Piper,” she muttered while she tapped the screen.
I’M FINE. NO NEED TO HAND-HOLD. TELL JACE I’LL CALL HIM LATER.
The bubble came up instantly as Piper began to type.
NO GO, GIRLIE. EITHER U TELL ME WHERE U ARE OR I START METH-CALLING. I CAN BE VERY PERSUASIVE. JACE GIVES YOU HIS LOVE, BTW. (SAD FACE EMOJI)
It was gutting Caroline to think of Jace in pain. She hadn’t really factored in his feelings at all. She’d been out of her right mind. And maybe there was a tiny part of her that wanted him to suffer a little, too, just like she was suffering.
But only a little!
Picturing him slumped over Piper’s kitchen table was horrible, and a small sob escaped her throat. She thought for a minute before typing. Then she wrote:
I’D NEVER DO METH. COCAINE MAYBE. HOTELRED, ON MONROE. #408.
Caroline tossed her phone onto the bed and brought her palms up to her face and scrubbed. She struggled to sit up with all the pillows and the thick comforter she’d been hiding under. She finally wrestled it away and got up, pacing to the glass doors, which led to a small balcony. The only room that had been available in the early morning hours had been a one-bedroom suite in this ultra-modern hotel. She pulled back a piece of the sheer curtains. It was light out, but the sun had just risen.
She let the drapes fall back in place and padded out to a separate sitting area that held a couch, a kitchenette, and two barstools scooted up to a small counter. She pulled open the door of the small fridge and plucked out a water. She twisted off the cap and sat down on the couch, which was hard and unyielding.
She was a mess.
Her hair was unkempt. Her robe was loosely tied over her flannel PJs. In her haste, she’d grabbed the top to one set and the bottoms to another.