Page 109 of Santa Has a Six-Pack
“Matt! Hi!” she squeaks.
“Yeah,” I practically growl. “Hi.”
“This, um, this is not what it looks like,” she says.
“Oh, good!” I say in a faux cheery tone. “Because it looks like you had your tongue down some other guy’s throat when you’re set to marry my best friend in two weeks.”
“How about you calm down?” the dude huffs, which was the absolute wrong thing to say to me right now.
“How about you get the fuck out of here before I?—”
“Before you what?”
The dude gets all up in my face.
Another mistake.
As I go to shove him away from me, Penny steps between us and shouts, “Matt? Tagg? Stop.”
“Tagg?” I say. “What do you mean Tagg?”
“That’s his name.” Penny gestures to the guy standing in front of me, who’s wearing a tailored suit that probably costs more than I make all year. “His name is Tagg.”
“And you know this how?” I ask.
“He’s Keira’s husband,” she says matter-of-factly, then backtracks. “Ex-husband? Estranged husband. Yeah, he’s her estranged husband.”
“Okay…” I say, trying to understand what the hell is happening here. “Is there a reason you don’t seem surprised to see this piece of shit all over my best friend’s fiancée in a tiny bodega on a Wednesday afternoon?”
Penny takes a deep breath, lets it out, then looks deeply in my eyes.
“Because I already knew.”
Chapter 29
Penny
Lie to me once, and you’re dead to me.
The words Matt said to me when he told me about his mother are the only things running through my head right now.
And I’m panicking.
Elinor and Tagg take this opportunity to exit.
“Yeah, you better run!” Matt calls after them, clearly heated.
“Alright,” I say, placing a hand on his arm. “Let me explain.”
Matt pulls his arm away.
I don’t think Matt has ever pulled away from me.
“You knew,” he says, his voice hard. “You knew my buddy was being cheated on, and you didn’t think to tell me so I could warn him.”
He storms out of the bodega onto the street.
I follow him.
