Page 41 of The Husband Hour
Lauren had watched him practice a few times over the summer, but this was the first game she’d been to since they’d become a couple. When he skated out onto the ice in the first moments of play, she felt a swell of pride that made her chest almost physically ache. It was strange to be surrounded by all those people watching him, hundreds of eyes on the boy she’d come to know so well.
The crowd jumped to its feet. One minute and fifty seconds of play, and Rory had scored his first goal of the season. He made his signature gesture—lifted both hands into the air, then pulled his left arm in sharply at the elbow, his hand a fist. Score!
She settled back in her seat and someone yanked on her ponytail. Hard.
She whirled around to confront the offender and was surprised to see Stephanie.
“Oh, hey! I didn’t know you were coming,” she said, naively interpreting the hair-tug as a playful greeting. Stephanie was all decked out in Seven jeans and a top that made her look like she’d stepped out of a scene from The OC (her favorite show). Her hair was loose and as golden as the oversize hoops in her ears.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she snapped.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Lauren looked around nervously. “About what?” She noticed Mindy Levy standing next to Stephanie, arms crossed.
“Rory Kincaid,” Stephanie said.
She looked electrically beautiful in her rage, and it was hard in that moment for Lauren to believe that anyone would choose her over Stephanie. But it was clear that Stephanie realized that someone had.
“Let’s go outside,” Lauren said.
“Do you want me to come?” Mindy asked Stephanie.
Stephanie ignored her—seemed to be ignoring both of them—and stalked out of the rink. Lauren didn’t know if she was simply leaving or if she was agreeing to continue the conversation outside. Reluctantly, she followed her, just steps behind. Stephanie didn’t turn around, and the heavy doors to the rink almost slammed on Lauren before she caught them. Behind her, she heard the roar of the crowd, and she wondered if she’d missed one of Rory’s plays.
The hallway was ten degrees warmer than inside the rink, and perspiration immediately made her layers of clothes feel suffocating. Stephanie kept walking, still not glancing back, until she was gone from the Skatium. Lauren followed her outside.
“Stephanie, stop!” Lauren yelled. Her sister whirled around, and even in the darkness, Lauren could see the glisten of tears in her eyes.
“I can’t believe you,” Stephanie said. “How could you lie to me like this?”
“I didn’t l-lie to you,” Lauren stammered. “I just didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, now you didn’t want to talk? We talk about everything else. And I felt bad for you. I invited you to everything because I didn’t want you to be a loser, and this is how you pay me back?”
“Stephanie, I don’t really get why you’re upset. You never, ever mentioned him to me.”
“You know we hooked up!”
Lauren couldn’t believe it. “Yeah, and I asked if you were dating and you said this wasn’t 1985 or something like that. As if it were the dumbest question in the world. And then you never mentioned him again, and the next time I brought him up, you said he was an asshole. So what do you care if I’m…hanging out with him?”
“Hanging out with him? You mean fucking him.”
Lauren felt herself turn white. Was that what she’d heard? “I’m not…fucking him,” she said, the words catching in her throat.
“Well, then I guess this whole thing should be over soon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Stephanie smiled an odd smile. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when he realizes he’s wasting his time with you. You’re on your own.”
She turned and walked briskly to the parking lot. Lauren trotted behind her.
“Fine, I should have told you. I’m sorry. It was wrong for me to let you hear it from someone else.” She resisted the urge to ask who had told her. “But why do you care about some guy you hung out with last year?”
“Some guy I hung out with? What do you think we were doing in my room that night, Lauren? Playing Monopoly? Maybe that’s what you do, but we fucked. And it’s the girl code—no, forget that, the sister code—not to sleep with guys your sister already slept with!”
Lauren reeled back as if she had been slapped. That’s what it felt like, a physical blow. In all the months she’d been with Rory, she had not thought about—had not allowed herself to think about—the extent to which he had hooked up with Stephanie.
She realized, standing alone in the dark, long after her sister had peeled off in her car, that she had been living in denial. And fine, maybe Stephanie had sex with a lot of people. And she acted like it never meant anything, and maybe it didn’t. But that didn’t change the fact that what was going on between herself and Rory merited a conversation with her sister. Deep down, on a level Lauren didn’t want to acknowledge, she had known this all along.
