Page 41 of Good at Being Alive
“I suppose he just hadn’t met the right girl,” I reply coolly.
Her smile flickers out for only half a second…but I catch it. Was she among the hordes of women who wanted Theo at one time? It’s hard to imagine that she didn’t succeed in getting him, at least briefly, if she tried.
Theo returns to my side with another round but seems even more stiff and unhappy than he was before. We’re not halfway through our drinks when his hand wraps around mine—the first hint of affection all night, or what would be affection if it was at all genuine.
“Are you ready to go?” he asks.
I turn and suddenly our faces are too close. Close enough that we could easily kiss, the way a new couple might, but I’m too irritated to fake things right now. I’m irritated by most of his dumb friends, by his reserve, by the fact that he has kept so much information to himself. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I specifically asked him what I needed to know on the way here. Fi never came up once. And I still have no idea what happened to all his supposed money.
“Very,” I reply. My voice is quiet, but he hears something in my tone. There’s a flicker of alarm in his gaze before he smiles at everyone and announces our departure.
I’m hugged and promised lots of fun on my next visit to London—Peter is the only one who seems to mean it—and then, at last, Theo and I are outside in the quiet night. I march in the direction of his car, and he keeps pace.
All I want in the entire world is to dissect this by phone with Bronwyn. I’d climb into bed and tell her every detail simply to hear her gasp in outrage on my behalf.
Well, if I was discussing a guy I hadn’t stolen from her, thatis.
“Is something wrong?” he asks. The boredom in his tone, as if he’s already certain my issues are hyperbolic, sets me on edge.
“If you’d hoped to sell that to your friends, you failed miserably,” I tell him.
“I never thought for a minute we’d sell that,” he replies.
Asshole.
Because I tried. I really tried, and he did not, as I’m apparently nowhere near the amazing Fi, whoever the fuck she is. I’m so far from being Fi that it’s fucking laughable I even came out tonight and attempted this—nearly as laughable as believing, for a moment, that Theo might like me just as I am. He doesn’t even like the girl I’mpretendingIam.
I take two steps toward the car and round on him. “Who’s Fi?” I blurt. Shit. I’m jealous. I have no idea why. But I’m definitely jealous, and I sure didn’t hide it well just now.
A muscle pulses in his cheek. “I assume Wendy mentioned her.”
It infuriates me that there reallyissomething there, and that he’s still not answering. “Look, I don’t give a shit who you dated before, but if you’ve got a bunch of skeletons in your closet, speak up now because you make us both look like assholes when those skeletons are referencedpublicly.”
He frowns. “You’re right—I should have told you. Fi is Fiona. She was my fiancée.”
My gaze jerks up to his. There were any number of responses I’d anticipated, but this wasn’t one of them. “You had a fiancée?You?”
His hand wraps around my waist to pull me away from the road as a car flies past. “Is it really so shocking? After all, I now have a wife.”
God, he’s so annoying. It shouldn’t take an hour to get this fucking story out of him. “Presumably you weren’tpretendingshe was your fiancée for financial gain, however. So you were engaged and…what happened? You realized there was a lingerie model you hadn’t yet banged? You accidentally decapitated her?”
He tosses his keys in the air and catches them. “You know me so well, wifey. I barely need to tell you a thing.”
Something in his unhappiness leaves me feeling guilty, though I don’t know why. “I’m forced to presume you were at fault given how cagey you’re being about it now.”
He frowns as he opens the car door for me. “No. I wasn’t. Can we leave it at that?”
I turn to face him. “I’d rather not. Seriously, Theo. If it somehow comes up again, I don’t want to be the only person in the room without a clue what happened.”
His jaw grinds, and then he releases a heavy sigh. “Penelope, Kieran’s wife, was friends with Fiona. I came to learn that Fiona knew she was cheating and helped cover for her. She lied to my face and to Kieran’s for months. I saw their texts myself. Please don’t discuss this on camera.”
My mouth opens to insist that I wouldn’t—that I do actually have some boundaries—but I can hardly fault him for asking when he hasn’t seen much evidence of boundaries thus far. I slide into my seat and wait until he’s in the car too before I turn his way.
It’s still shocking that he cared about anyone enough, atsome point in his life, to marry her for real. It’s probably even stranger that I’m shocked. He’s a good guy, despite the surly attitude. Why shouldn’t he have wanted the things everyone else does?
I turn back to face the street, because I’m not sure what I should even say to him. I’m sorry it happened, but I’m also irritated. Yes, his friends are jerks, and he didn’t beg me to meet them, and I can understand why he didn’t volunteer all the stuff about his fiancée. But, despite my many failings, I’d be a better friend to him than the people I met tonight, yet he clearly doesn’t consider me one.
I know why my family treated me like a loose cannon and a failure and someone you hold at arm’s length…but why doeshe?
