Page 54 of Easton

“I don’t know,” I tell Madison.

But really, whatamI going to do?

I can’t expect Easton to live his life as a monk. This was bound to happen at some point.

But did he have to kiss someone in freaking public?

He should have known better.

“Do you think you’ll leave him?” Madison asks quietly.

Of course I’m not going to leave him; it’s not like what he did isn’t “allowed” in our crazy arrangement. Not that we’ve ever talked about it. Though, considering what’s happening now, maybe we should.

Whatever.

Shaking my head, I say to my friend, “No, I’m not going to leave him. It was just a kiss, Madison.”

Her brow furrowing, she says, “That’s still bad, Claire.”

“It is.”

She bites her lip, then asks, “And what if it was more?”

Again, I have no leg to stand on.

But she doesn’t know that, so I wave my hand around dismissively and say, “I don’t think he’d go that far.”

She looks doubtful as she mutters, “I hope you’re right.”

I sigh. “Yeah, I do too.”

I don’t tell her this, but I plan to stay up tonight to talk to Easton about the situation we’re now in. I don’t care how late he comes in. I don’t think I could sleep anyway. No matter how bad it may be, I need to know what happened.

Madison and I talk a little more. At one point, she checks the blog again and finds the incriminating photo is gone.

After scrolling through the other pics to double-check, she confirms, “Yeah, it’s definitely been deleted.”

I blow out a relieved breath, as that tells me Easton knows about the photo and has somehow addressed it.

“That’s good that it’s gone,” I say.

“It is,” Madison agrees. “But just in case he tries to deny it, I took a screenshot of the photo. Here, let me text it to you.”

Oh great, now I’ll have a picture of my husband kissing some other girl forever on my phone.

I’ll have it forever because I have no plans to ever delete it.

No, I need it as a reminder that Easton is not really my husband.

I have to accept that and live with it, no matter how painful it has become.

Ithink Lennox has got this covered. He’s good at putting out dumpster fires. And that fucking picture of the puck bunny kissing me is the biggest dumpster fire I’ve ever had to deal with up to this point in my career.

I’m usually known as the “good guy” hockey player. I maintain a clean image, and I strive to keep it that way.

But a picture of some floozy kissing me, one where it looks like I’m into it, even though I wasn’t, is bad publicity.

Particularly when you’re fucking married!

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