Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,62

able to get out of bed. I lied to the boys and said I had the flu. The rasp to my voice and red-rimmed eyes helped convince them.

And bless them, my heroes, my princes, they bought it. They took care of me. Ryder took Jax to school, ferried him around. Brought juices and soup upstairs.

They both snuggled into my bed at nighttime, watching old movies, eating snacks. Well, they ate. My stomach was too full of knots to keep anything down. There was still a visceral absence in the bed, David’s side empty and cold. His nightstand still had a stack of books, his reading glasses neatly on top of them. His clothes still hung in the closet, bath products in the shower, aftershave and razor in the bathroom.

I had left everything. Just in case they figured out how to bring people back from the dead and he was going to walk right back into my life.

And that was it. On the second night, cuddled up to my boys in the bed I’d never again share with my husband, I got it.

What the asshole—what I was now referring to Zeke as—had said. What he’d meant.

I was not his.

Not entirely, at least.

Because I was still David’s.

I belonged to a dead man, and not myself.

I stared at the closet. It stared back at me like an abyss. Cold, unyielding. Sickening. David’s expertly pressed shirts lined the racks, color coordinated because I’d been anal about how our closet looked in my fucking Instagram stories. David was not allowed to leave a rogue goddamn sock. And he never complained. Didn’t comment on what a bullshit idea it was that I had to police our fucking life to make sure it was ready to be streamed on social media.

It surely pissed him off. Coming home from working a ten-hour day to me thrusting a phone in his face, demanding a photo. Constantly changing the house so it kept up with my ‘image.’ Constant packages, products, me never being able to enjoy a moment without documenting it. Sharing everything.

Yes, it surely annoyed my quiet, private, and sensible husband. I was sure he thought the entire thing rather vapid, but he never said so, not out loud. Now and then there were looks, jokes, but nothing concrete. Nothing full of resentment, just David going along with what I wanted, because at the end of the day, beyond all of our problems, he loved me. He wanted to give me everything he could.

Pain, sharp, immediate, and intense stabbed at the area in my chest with absolute agony and longing for my husband at the same time I was craving another man. I stumbled into the closet, yanked one of the shirts from its hanger. Then another. Pulled at jackets, suits, socks. I didn’t stop until every object in the closet was disheveled, wrinkled, and littering the floor.

“Ah, so I see you’ve finally lost it,” the voice said from somewhere above me.

I moved from where I’d buried myself in David’s clothes on the floor. I’d tried to sink into them. Let them sink into me. They faintly smelled of him. Too faintly. It would be gone soon, the last traces of his scent. Of his life.

That had hit me somewhere in the middle of the closet destruction. That no matter how long I held on to all of his things, he’d be dead for longer. It wouldn’t change any of it. He wasn’t coming home.

But someone else had.

I finally found my way out of the sea of shirts to see the figure standing in the doorway.

She was wearing army green cargo pants that tied at the waist, a crisp white shirt tucked into them, and a wide brimmed hat. Her dark hair tumbled out of it in perfect waves.

I scowled at my best friend. “And I bet you just got off a fucking twelve-hour flight, you bitch.”

She grinned. “Well, it was thirteen, but who’s counting.” She moved into the closet, dodging belts and watches and whatever else had been the victim of the great closet destruction, and sat down beside me. She brushed the hair from my face. “You, my dear, look like absolute shit,” Lydia replied cheerfully.

“Well, thanks,” I snapped.

“It’s a good thing,” she said, not at all affected by the venom in my tone. “You look like a woman that’s been hit by a year, by a lifetime of loss. It’s about fucking time. I’ve obviously timed my arrival just right.” She kissed my forehead.

The bitch smelled