Page 46 of Just One Chance
As they moved closer, Avery noticed the giant engagement ring on the woman’s finger.
Fiancée, then.
Avery wanted to crawl under the bench that sat behind her against the wall. How could she have been so stupid? Anger and embarrassment flared to life inside her. She wouldn’t hide. Hiding meant Tucker would escape unscathed. And there wasn’t anything fair about that.
Avery took one step to the left, right into the path Tucker was taking to exit the theater. When their eyes met, he startled. “Avery,” he said, eyes wide.
The woman looked at him closely, her eyebrows drawn down in question, but didn’t say anything.
“Tucker,” Avery said. “Funny running intoyouhere since you’re supposed to be traveling.”
Tucker looked from Avery, to the woman beside him, then back to Avery. “I got back early,” he said cautiously. “Avery, I’d like you to meet Jessica, my fiancée.” He shot Avery a look, a clear plea for mercy, but she was done with his entitled behavior.
Avery took two steps forward, stopping right in front of Tucker, but then turned and looked at Jessica instead. “Ask your husband-to-be where he was last weekend. Ask him, and don’t give up until he tells you the truth.” She looked back at Tucker then and called him a name that fifteen years ago would have made Melba threaten to wash her mouth out with soap. But in this instance, she was pretty sure even Melba would let it slide.
Jessica turned on Tucker and pushed his arm off of her shoulders. “Who is this woman?” she hissed. “What is going on here?”
Avery backed away, not wanting or needing to be a part of whatever drama Tucker had ahead of him. Adrenaline raced through her veins and she suddenly felt sick. She lowered herself onto the bench she’d only just contemplated hiding under and pushed her face into her hands. She was pretty sure their little confrontation had earned an audience—she could still feel eyes on her—but she couldn’t bear the thought of making eye contact with anyone. She wanted to disappear. To hide in her bedroom for two weeks, to shower over and over again until the feel of Tucker’s skin against hers had been scrubbed out of her pores and forgotten.
What were the odds that she would run into Tucker at a movie theater she never even went to on the one night she happened to show up? And then the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place in her brain. Odds were pretty high, actually. Because it hadn’t been a coincidence at all.
Avery stared at the floor long enough for Tucker and Jessica to make their escape. She kept sitting, unwilling to look up, to let anyone see her burning face or tear-filled eyes.
A man sat down next to Avery on the bench. She didn’t have to see him to know that it was David.
“You knew,” she said, her voice quiet, her tone even.
David sighed. “Yes.”
Avery swallowed. “How?”
“I can’t really tell you that.”
Avery scoffed. “You can’t? Or you won’t?”
“I made an oath, Avery. I can’t.”
She turned her face to the side, finally making eye contact. His posture mirrored hers, his elbows propped up on his knees, his body leaning forward. “So you saw him at the hospital then?” Another lightbulb lit up in her brain. “He went to the ER when he hurt his arm. And you were his doctor.”
David didn’t say anything, but the steadiness of his gaze told her she was right. “And Jessica was with him?”
Finally, David nodded. Apparently patient confidentiality didn’t extend to girlfriends. Wait.Fiancées.
“So that’s why you called me here?” Avery said. “Because you knew they’d be here? How much spying did that take? Did you follow them here or something? Just waiting for a public place where you could reel me in and out them?”
“I swear tonight was a total coincidence. I was already here and just happened to see them.”
“Still. You lied to me. That’s your car in the parking lot. You don’t actually need a ride. Why didn’t you just tell me about her, David? Why go through all this trouble?”
David squirmed, running a hand across his scalp and mussing his always-perfect hair. “Tucker is aKing,Avery. He plays golf with the entire hospital’s board of directors. Gerald Stevenson, the doctor who hired me, came to see him while he was in the ER, checking to make sure I was taking good care of him. Tucker basically threatened to have me fired if I told you anything.”
“And you believed that he could actuallydothat? Over something as insignificant as this? All you had to say was ‘Avery, I can’t tell you how I know, but Tucker’s engaged and you shouldn’t trust him’ and I would have believed you. You could have trusted me.”
“I tried to tell you,” David said. “Or at least hint at it. But you always shut me down.”
“Because you didn’t give me any information,” Avery shot back. “You just tossed out self-righteous judgements without any justification.”
A group of people stopped just to the left of the bench where they sat. David stood up, taking a step toward them before looking back at Avery. Two people in the group were clearly a couple; the other was a woman who kept looking expectantly at David. Had he been on adate?
