“And as for you,” I say to Afton. Her eyes fall to the floor. She won’t look at me. “Thank you.”
Her gaze lifts.
“Thank you for saving me from marrying that pathetic fraud,” I say. “And I mean it, Afton. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I would’ve been miserable. And no one deserves to dedicate their life to a man who can’t keep it in his pants.”
They say nothing, and I almost wish they’d speak up. My mind is going a million miles an hour, and my heart hammers in my ears. I’m ready to go rounds.
“Congratulations, by the way.” I slap a sarcastic smile on my face. “A baby. That’s exciting.”
Afton brings her hand to her lower belly with slow reluctance. Her mouth falls, like she’s seconds from thanking me, and then she realizes I don’t mean it.
Brooks always said he didn’t want kids until he was thirty-five. That was his magic number. The age when he was convinced he’d have gotten “everything” out of his system—whatever that meant. I wonder if he realizes how prohibitive parenting is? Being a dad is really going to cramp his lifestyle, and I can almost guarantee that Afton will talk him into listing his Porsche for sale before the end of the year. It’s not exactly family friendly.
Oh, well. Not my problem anymore.
I’m not sure how to make a graceful exit after all of this, and their shocked stares and void eyes are starting to freak me out. This entire exchange is as awkward for me as it is for them, so I do us all a favor and turn to leave.
The hallway is silent, save for a few nurses making small talk by the nurse’s station and the sound of monitors beeping when I pass certain rooms. It’s business as usual out here.
Just another ordinary Saturday night.
By the time I reach the exit, the automatic doors part and a burst of cool air hits my face. It’s cleansing, and my body shivers as I walk the snow-tracked parking lot. A few loose snowflakes flurry around me. They’re giant and wet when they land on my face, but I almost feel like one of them now.
Weightless.
Free.
Chapter Thirty-One
Royal
The flicker from the TV screen lights my apartment, and I’m sprawled across my Murphy bed, waiting for sleep to take a hold of me when a knock on the door wakes me from my trance.
It had better not be fucking Misty again.
Or Pandora.
Shit, it’d be just like Pandora to show up here unannounced in nothing but a trench coat and a ninety-nine cent thong.
I slip a pair of navy sweats over my boxers and tug a white t-shirt over my head, combing my hair into place.
Checking the peephole, I smirk when I see who’s decided to grace my presence at ten o’clock on a Saturday night.
I yank the door open, smacked with the never-ending scent of Downy April Fresh and the face of an angel dressed in all black.
“Did you know she was pregnant?” Demi asks, straight-faced.
“Who?”
She barges in, slipping under my arm, and I shut the door behind her. Plopping down on my bed like she’s been here a million times before, she exhales loudly. Whatever she’s talking about, she doesn’t seem upset in the slightest.
There’s something lighter about her, even compared to when I saw her a few hours ago.
“The girl Brooks was seeing. Afton,” she says.
“Ah, I never knew her name,” I say. “And no, didn’t know she was pregnant. Never looked pregnant when I saw her.”
Demi blows a curl of hair from her face and lies back on my bed, kicking her heels off and letting them drop to the carpet.
I crawl into my bed, lying next to her, and roll to my stomach. Resting my chin in my hand, I can’t take my eyes off of her.
“What are you doing here? Thought you had a fundraiser,” I say.
She rolls to her side, mirroring me. “Yeah. About that.”
I smirk. “What’d you do?”
“Brenda wanted me to give a speech. I didn’t want to lie to all those people.” She rolls to her back, staring up at my water-spotted popcorn ceiling. “So I left. I left, and I went straight to the hospital. And I confronted Brooks. And he denied everything.”
“He denied the affair?” I frown.
“Yep. Said he didn’t remember leaving me. Said he wanted to be with me and he was sorry for a lot of things, but he didn’t remember anything about an affair or why he would’ve been driving to Glidden the night of the accident.”
“Makes no sense. He left you. He picked her. Why would he pretend he didn’t?”
“At first I thought it was his memory.” She sighs. “The doctors said he was going to have short-term memory issues, so it didn’t seem unusual at first. But then I remembered the credit cards, and I thought maybe those statements might help jog his memory. I went home and got them, and when I came back, Afton was in his room. I overheard their entire conversation.”