Page 43 of Dodge

“Why not?”

“Please, Fauna, I can’t.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she let loose. “We’ve been circling each other for months. You feel it. I feel it. We’re both adults, and we want each other. What’s the problem?” She threw her hands up in frustration, then pinned him with a withering look. “Don’t tell me it’s because I’m—”

He didn’t let her finish the question. “No, goddammit! You know me better than that.”

“Then what the hell is wrong?” Her volume increased with exasperation.

He couldn’t blame her for getting angry. It was a shitty thing to do, leading her on, flirting with her, touching her the way he did so long ago, only to drop a bomb like this on her.

But she needed to know. She deserved to know why he blew hot and cold at the same time.

“I’m still married.”

* * *

Dodge droppedoff the truck at the garage and unloaded his bike to drive home. He was almost swaying on his feet with fatigue.

He pulled up to his apartment and cut the engine. His thoughts were still on the woman he left back at the Smoky Mountain Bistro. Fauna had shut down after his confession. He saw all the emotions drain from her face in an instant as the words left his mouth. She didn’t show rage as he’d expected. She didn’t cry. She didn’t rant. She didn’t indicate pain. She just shut down and turned away, leaving him alone in the middle of the empty restaurant.

It would have been better if she gave some sort of reaction. Anything would have been better than the cold that pierced him when she left. Hell, he wished she’d punched him repeatedly with her fists and loudly cursed him.

“Fuck,” he swore and leaned his head forward to rest on his hands draped over the steering wheel.

He had the divorce papers in his desk at work. Already signed by him, but he’d never filed them. He should have finished this business a long time ago but never got around to it. God, how he wished he had. Divorce in North Carolina was possible without consent, but the year-long waiting period reset every time Mallory came back in his life. Perhaps he might have pushed it, but even after all this time, he still had a soft spot for the little girl he grew up with, and his sense of responsibility for her had never really gone away. He’d wondered for the longest time if they would ever become the couple and family he hoped for. But those dreams had died so many times that he should have been immune to her by now.

He thought he was destined for a life of being single in a toxic marriage. That was until he met a woman at a hotel bar and spent the night with her. Fauna made him think of the future and what it would be like to wake up next to someone. To have a partner, a real one, who stood by you and with you through thick and thin. Brick had that with Betsey, Mute with Kat, Stud with Eva, Blue with Psalm, and Table with Lori. He’d wanted that with Mallory so badly, but over time and multiple disappointments, that desire had disintegrated into no more than wishful thinking.

And it killed him to think that he had a chance with Fauna and epically blew it before ever really getting started.

He sighed. He was tired as fuck. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Maybe he would go over and see Fauna tomorrow. Talk to her and lay everything out. If she would let him in the door. First, he had to talk to Mallory and settle the shit between them once and for all.

He dragged his feet as he climbed the steps and entered the dark apartment. The first thing that struck him was the silence. No lights. No movement. Nothing.

An empty hollowness started at the base of his spine and crackled as it moved up and over his shoulders. He didn’t have to check the bedroom to be certain as the familiar feeling of betrayal engulfed him.

Mallory was gone again.

CHAPTER23

“You’regonna dig a hole in that thing if you keep going at it like that.”

Macie was right. I looked at the marks I’d made on the grill top with my frantic scrubbing and realized I’d committed the cardinal sin of scratching off most of the seasoning.Fuck me sideways!

“I’m still married.”

Those words had been ringing in my head for days. After he dropped that bit of wisdom on me, I had the rare experience of being speechless. Nothing, not even a cold shower, could make me drop from a fever-pitched four-fifty to subarctic zero in a nanosecond.

“I’m still married.”

How was that possible? What good did it do him to stay married to a woman who obviously had no commitment to him? Did he still love her? Why would he subject himself to that shit?

Love dies when it doesn’t get fed.

I dropped the scrubber and shook my head to clear it. “Fuck.”

“Something’s been biting your ass for a couple days now. You wanna lay it on me, girlfriend?”

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