to say to me, you can do it privately.”
“Privately?” she asks, blinking back tears. “Should I bring the condoms and the lube?” She turns to Chastity again. “Congratulations on finally getting a turn on the mechanical bull. How did you manage it? Did you ask him for a little tutoring help, maybe? This algebra is so boring Dylan. Why don’t you teach me how to ride your dick. Did you learn it from a romcom? Did you hope he’d fall in love with you?”
Chastity’s eyes go red. She takes a step backward, as if to distance herself from Kaitlyn’s venom. And she can’t even look at me.
“Just don’t forget,” Kaitlyn spits. “He wanted me first. And I didn’t have to beg to see his dick.”
On that horrible note, she finally leaves, striding past Chastity and heading for her room. Her door slams closed with an earth-shattering crash a moment later.
Chastity looks as shell-shocked as I feel.
“Hey…” I don’t even know what to say next. Thanks for the towel. Shall we go out for breakfast? “I’m really sorry—”
But Chastity’s hand slices through the air with surprising violence. “Do not apologize right now.”
“Why the hell not?”
I’m clearly the dumbest man alive, therefore “I’m sorry” seems like a pretty good opener. I can’t believe I let myself get caught out naked in their bathroom. It’s marginally insensitive to my ex. But it’s a disaster for Chastity, who still has to live with that harpy.
“Because I don’t want to hear your opinion of what actually happened,” she says, her voice shaking. “Just…let’s forget everything.” She turns and hurries into her room.
“Wait!” I finish drying off as quickly as I can. My mind is a twisted knot of anxiety. I need to take her somewhere quiet and try to explain.
But when I leave the bathroom, Chastity meets me at the doorway to her room, her arms full of my clothes, backpack, and shoes. “Here. I think you should go.”
“Right now?”
“Right now,” she says stiffly.
“No way,” I say, my voice cracking with unhappiness. “We have to talk.”
“But I don’t want to,” she says. And then she steps into her room and shuts the door with a horrible click.
Leaving me standing there in the hall like an idiot. A moment later I hear a sob. And I honestly can’t tell which door it came from.
I lean my forehead against Chastity’s door and try to think. If I could talk to her, I’d say…
Yeah, okay. So I’m not even sure what. You’re not unattractive. And I’m not the slut that Kaitlyn claims I am.
Except that while the first thing is true, the second one is iffy.
“Chastity,” I whisper against the door.
But she doesn’t answer me.
After a few more minutes shivering in this hallway, I have no other choice than to throw on my clothes and go.
My head is pounding as I drive back to Spruce Street. When I get there, I reach for the backseat to grab the backpack that I tossed there.
That’s when I spot the last boxes of caramels on the seat. The ones that we had an appointment to drop off at nine thirty this morning. I pull out my phone. It’s 9:23.
Shit!
Rickie comes out of the house just as I have this horrible realization. “Hey, man. We’re out of groceries. Want to drive me to Hannaford?”
“Get in,” I say, fishing for my keys. “But we’re going to City Market.”
“Ooh, fancy,” Rickie says, opening the passenger door. “What’s the occasion?”
“Saving my ass and selling caramels.”
“Can I try one, yet?” he asks.
“I guess,” I grumble. “Chastity hates me already for a long list of reasons. A few missing caramels won’t even hit the top ten.”
“Chastity does not hate you,” Rickie says, grabbing a box off the backseat as I back down the driveway and then hustle the truck through our little neighborhood.
“You don’t know that.”
“I sense a story here.”
“Yeah, you have no idea.”
“You’re late,” the manager of the upscale food co-op says when I locate her in an office in back.
“I know,” I say immediately. “My business partner is probably going to kill me. She’s the kind of person who is never late to anything. She made these candies by hand, but then couldn’t be here to meet with you.”
“Why not?” the woman asks, frowning. “She was so nice on the phone, she said she’d pitch to me herself.”
“Because I made her life difficult.” I swallow hard. She’s too busy crying to remember your appointment. “She’s probably inventing ways to kill me right now.”
“Sounds like there’s