Page 11 of Now You See Him
SUTTER CONSTRUCTION:
Excuse me?
TINA:
Derrick, you were just here. You checked the door, and we went down into the basement before you ran out of here.
Her phone started ringing,andsutter constructionappeared on her screen. Her stomach twisted in knots, but she answered the call immediately. “Derrick?” she said, hating that her voice trembled.
“Tina? Are you…are you okay?” He sounded like he was driving, which meant that there was very much a possibility he was lying to her to try to save face. He had to be gaslighting her, right? There was no way that she made up the whole visit. He entered through her front door, for god’s sake.
“Derrick, please tell me you remember being here in my house.”
There was a long pause. “I had a construction site visit this morning. I didn’t even get your text to come by until I responded to you thirty minutes ago.”
“Oh god.” Her voice cracked, and she pressed a hand over her face. He had to be lying. There was no way she made up the entire basement encounter. She had bruises on her thighs from where he held her legs apart. She still felt sore, painfully so, and deliciously used from her orgasm. And Derrick hadn’t caused any of it.
“Let me see what I can do to move things around,” he said slowly. “I can come by in an hour if?—”
“No,” Tina said quickly. “No, just…forget it. Things have been a bit weird here lately, and I thought—you know what? It doesn’t matter. I have to go.”
She hung up as quickly as she’d called. Before she could process a word of what Derrick had told her, Logan called out from the hallway.
“Honey?”
Tina tossed her phone aside, dropped the towel, and wrapped the robe around her, tying the belt as quickly as possible. Her fiancé walked in a moment later. His hair looked tousled. Windblown. His clothes were impeccable.
“Hey, I came in earlier and saw steam from the shower through the crack in the door. I’m assuming someone fixed it?” Logan said from the doorway.
“Ah, yeah. I think so.”
“Good.” He turned to go. Tina felt the need to say something, to blurt out everything that had happened, but even she couldn’t believe it.
“Logan?”
He turned to look over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“How was your visit? To your mom’s?”
He looked startled. Then he rubbed the back of his neck. “It was fine. Dad was the only one home, so I spent time with him instead. We’re invited for dinner on Sunday night. I said that I’d run it by you first.”
Even though it was the tiniest thing in a whole universe of fuckery that was now her life, she hated how Logan’s parents hadn’t come over to her house yet. They made one excuse after another, but they expected her to come and visit them.
Some of the jitteriness, her unraveling over the last hour, settled as she focused on something very real, something tangible. Tina forced a smile. “Sure. That’s fine.”
Logan nodded. “Great. I’m going to get some work done.”
“Okay. Oh, and thanks for leaving my robe out.”
He cocked his head at her. “What are you talking about?”
When she didn’t answer, he shrugged and walked out, leaving her shivering and alone in her bedroom.
That night, when she crawled under the covers and kept a good foot of space between herself and Logan, she prayed that her sleep was dreamless. She was mentally exhausted after trying to process what had happened to her. All she had were questions, and she desperately needed answers.
Tina was standingin the kitchen of her home.
Or what could’ve been her home. The countertops were Formica, the cabinets dated yellow oak, and the floor was a gray tile that had seen better days.
