Page 24 of The Affair
Reed …
I’d tried not to think of him since that morning, but it was hard. The memory of the tall blonde standing on the porch of our old house just kept coming back—the way she’d waved at the neighbor and locked the door with such ease and familiarity.
Do they know she’s a home-wrecker?
Do they know she slept with my husband in a filthy restroom stall while I sat at home, processing my father’s cancer diagnosis?
I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. Reed could move on with whomever he wanted. It was his life, and mine had nothing to do with his anymore. After all, we were divorced for a reason.
But why did it have to beher?
Trying to focus on my cat shopping, I took another sip of wine, only to be interrupted by the doorbell.
I’d been back at my parents’ house for over a year now, and the doorbell hadn’t seen this much action since my drunken shopping spree a few months ago. Had I done it again?
Nope, definitely not.
There was no package waiting for me on other side.
Just him.
“Sawyer, why do you keep showing up on my doorstep? At night?” I asked, not even bothering to block his entry. I knew he was just going to invite himself in anyway. Why else would he be here?
“I’m kind of a spur-of-the-moment type of guy,” he explained, taking me up on my invite right away.
I watched as he stepped through the threshold with ease, like he owned the place.
“When I get something in my head, I just need to do it. So, when I came up with the plans for my booth and wanted to show them to you …”
“You just figured,Hey, why the hell not? Eloise Woods has no life to speak of, so she’ll obviously be home, doing absolutely nothing. Might as well just stop by.”
He held up a brown paper bag. “I brought burgers.”
My head tilted slightly as a grin spread. “You should have led with that.”
“I’ll remember that for next time.”
Next time?
I didn’t even bother asking, instead, I just headed into the living room, too buzzed on wine to even care about the mess that had taken up residence in the space. It didn’t seem to bother him either because he began to make himself right at home almost immediately, clearing space off the coffee table as he settled himself into the cozy green chair he’d occupied just days earlier.
“Comfy?” I asked as he began to unbag the food.
“Yes, thanks.”
Taking the spot on the couch I’d left just moments before, I slid my laptop to the opposite side and began to feel awkward right away.
Sawyer and I weren’t exactly buddies or even friends.
In the twenty years or so that I’d known him, the majority of our conversations had probably taken place in the last few days. Sure, we exchanged niceties at holidays and waved at one another in the grocery store, but this? This was different. This was more.
I didn’t really know much about the guy either—except for what Reed had told me, which wasn’t much. The Gallagher family wasn’t exactly the warm and friendly sort of bunch.
“Are you a picky eater?”
“What?” I asked, suddenly aware I was staring at him rather intently.
“I got them fully loaded—tomatoes, onions, the works—so if there’s anything you don’t like, you probably want to grab a plate or something.”
