gold thing, and cufflinks that glisten under the spotlights.
“This is a surprise. Kyra wasn’t sure that you would be able to make it.” Simona’s voice is the only soft thing in this barbed-wire nightmare.
“I didn’t know you all had plans to come here,” he says, while acid boils in the vat that is my stomach.
“I bet you didn’t,” I bite back.
Jessica pipes up. She’s obviously enjoying the show. “I sent them tickets. It was the least I could do after meeting you at Elias’s party.”
Brad tilts his head up and tries to dislodge his arm out of her Ironman grip. His eyes never leave mine. “I didn’t want to raise your hopes. I was hoping to surprise you all at the restaurant later,” he says, ignoring Jessica.
“You’ve certainly done that,” Simona remarks. She has the same concerns as me—that Jessica and he are an item—although she doesn’t know about me and Brad yet.
The lying, cheating snake.
He cheated on me.
Or maybe he cheated on her.
How could he do that to me, and after everything I’ve told him?
“Is that your car out there, dude?” Fredrich seems immune to the fragility hanging in the air.
“Yes.” We’re in a staring contest of sorts, and I refuse to look away. “How could you …” The words fall from my lips before I can stop myself.
Jessica laughs.
What the hell is she laughing about?
Simona’s hand on my arm reminds me to stay calm and steady, and from the periphery of my vision, I can see Fredrich staring at me.
“I can explain, Kyra,” Brad says.
“This will be good.” Jessica has a nasally voice which now grates on my already frayed nerves like a knife on a blackboard.
None of this makes sense. None of it.
“Did she just call you Brandon?” Fredrich says. He looks at me as if he’s thinking the same thing: that we know nothing about this man who seems to lead a double life.
“Is that your name, Brad?” Simona asks.
I glare at Jessica. “Is that why you clung to me like a leech over at city hall?”
“I was curious to see what you were like,” she replies.
“Why?” Before she can reply, Brad positions himself in front of her, so that he’s in my face, blocking out everything else. I step back, before the familiar mint and pine scent of him lowers my defenses.
“I can explain,” he starts to say, but I take a step back, otherwise my fist might be tempted to punch him in the stomach. A slow wave of dullness floods my senses, deadening those sharp and pointy emotions that sliced through me when I first saw him with that woman. It takes me back to the moment when I came home early, because I’d forgotten my phone, and I found my then boyfriend with a woman wrapped around him.
Now, like then, a man has upended my entire world. “Why is she calling you Brandon?” I ask. He never told me Brad was short for Brandon. It’s not such a big deal in the general scheme of things.
“Because that’s my name.”
“Brad, Brandon, what’s the difference?” Jessica says.
“Brandon who?” A mist is clearing in the deep recesses of my brain, and I am beginning to see things a little more clearly now.
“Brandon Hawks,” Jessica offers. “Didn’t you know?”
“Stay out of it.” He throws her a stare that would have turned a lesser person to stone. Just watching him reacting to her makes me see another side to him. “I can explain,” he says to me. “But not here. Somewhere else, just you and me.”
“Who’s Hartley?” I ask, as shockwave rolls over shockwave. The Tesla, the watch, him here, with Jessica, as if that isn’t enough for me to absorb, I am now even more curious about the name change.
“How about a ride in the car, dude?” Fredrich asks, completely enamored by the Tesla and blinded to the thick veil of duplicity I find myself wrapped up in.
“Another time,” Brad answers, his eyes still boring into mine. Jessica places a protective, territorial hand on his arm, and he flinches in irritation, shrugging her arm off, as easily as if he had swatted a fly. “Please, Kyra. Let’s go someplace and talk.” His voice is low, persuasive, almost seductive, and I’m back at the ancient baths again, or sitting in that expensive restaurant, letting him wine and dine me in naïve ignorance.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I hiss under my breath. “You cheating, lying, disgusting piece of--”
“I’m not cheating on you.”
“You don’t need to do