Chapter 23
CLOSE CALL
Clover
“For the record, I don’t love that this guy keeps showing up like this,” Maverick says.
He doesn’t fight me, though, letting me guide him toward the hallway. I go first to make sure the back deck is clear before I usher him out.
“Noted. Me either. We can talk about it later.” I reach for the sides of my cardigan, but I’m not wearing one, so all I can do is cross my arms.
He jams his feet into his shoes, grabs his jacket, kisses me on the cheek, and slips out the sliding door.
I’m grateful the snow from last night has already melted, otherwise it would be a lot harder to hide his hasty exit.
I rush back down the hall, pulling my bedroom door closed on the way.
My bed is a rumpled mess, and there are condom wrappers and empty lube packets littering the floor and the night table—all things I don’t need Gabriel to see.
My plan is to tell him that continuing to show up at my house uninvited and without warning isn’t appropriate, and that if this continues, I’m going to get my lawyer involved, and he can go through her.
Do I want to spend four hundred dollars every time Gabriel feels he needs to reassess our division of assets?
No. But I’m tired of the bullshit, and this was too close a call.
It’s one thing for Gabriel to find out I’m sleeping with another man—and I’m entirely within my rights to do so, since we’ve been separated for nearly a year and a half. But finding out I’m sleeping with one of my former students? That’s a recipe for disaster I don’t want to learn how to make.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I throw the door open.
Which is the moment my smoke alarm goes off.
I try to close the door in Gabriel’s face, but he grabs the handle before I can shut it all the way. I debate my very limited options and let him into the house, because the alternative is my kitchen going up in flames and him seeing Maverick trying to steal his way down the street.
The pancakes are charred on the edges. Two plates sit on the counter. I quickly dump the pancakes into the sink, turning on the water. I hit the button for the fan on the stove and rush over to the window to let in some fresh air and get rid of the smoke.
Gabriel leans against the kitchen doorjamb, his arms crossed.
His expression is passive, but he scans the room, eyes landing on the empty plates, then moving to the pair of coffee cups on the counter, and the full pot of coffee that’s been sitting for more than an hour now, because of a distraction in the form of sex.
My stomach flip-flops. If the timing had been different, this could have gone very wrong.
“Am I interrupting?” Gabriel sweeps his hand out.
“Sophia’s coming over for brunch.” It’s not a complete lie. Usually after her Saturday morning sessions, we have a late breakfast or early lunch. Like me, she’s flying out to see her parents later today. We scheduled our flights so we could go to the airport together.
He makes a noise but doesn’t comment otherwise.
“Why are you here anyway? I’ve already told you I’m not giving up the cabin. It’s not up for discussion, and you don’t even like it there.”
“It has sentimental value for me now.” He crosses over to the kitchen table and pulls a chair out. It scrapes loudly across the floor. “Aren’t you going to offer me coffee?”
“No, because I’m not inviting you to stay. This needs to stop, Gabriel. You can’t keep coming over unannounced and expect me to drop everything for you. If this is part of your strategy to win me back, it’s pretty piss poor.”
He drops into the chair, his expression remote.
“I see you haven’t calmed down since I was here last. I thought giving you some time to think would be enough, but apparently elevated is your new favorite state when I’m around.
You know what might help?” He steeples his fingers under his chin and smiles serenely.
“You leaving would do the trick,” I snap.
He pushes out of the chair and crosses the room in two quick strides. I take a step back and end up against the fridge. Gabriel grabs the handle and boxes me in with his other hand.
“What the hell are you doing?” My heart slams around in my chest. Gabriel was a lot of things when we were married—controlling, subversive, mean, spiteful, and at times verbally abusive—but he was never violent.
“You seem nervous, Clover. What are you hiding?” His expression shifts, and he leans in.
I duck out from under his arm and spin away from him, putting distance between us. “How else am I supposed to feel when you keep showing up uninvited?”
He plucks something from the counter.
A crane.
“This is an interesting new hobby.”
“Stop touching my things.”
He leans against the counter and inspects the paper crane. It’s made from a Scrabble score sheet. Thankfully the number on it is not particularly visible. “When exactly is Sophia going to be here? I didn’t see her car in the driveway.”
“It’s in the shop. Your welcome is worn out, Gabriel. I need you to go. Now.”
“Why must it always be a fight with you?”
“Why must it always be mind games with you?” I shout.
“I don’t deserve this anger. Everything I did, I did for you.”
“Everything you did, you did so you could control me.”
He sighs and drops his head, shaking it slowly.
“I love you, Clover. But you are making it exceedingly difficult to be nice. I gave you space for a year. I didn’t come after you, and I could have—should have, even.
The only person you’re making this harder on is yourself.
” He takes a step forward, and I pick up the closest heavy object, which happens to be a ceramic gnome I painted when I first moved to Pearl Bay.
They have a little store in town where you can paint and cure things. I don’t really want to ruin it because it marks the beginning of me reclaiming my life, but I’m starting to feel like Gabriel is losing his mind, and I could end up in the trunk of his car if I’m not careful.
He sets the crane on the counter and gives me a disapproving look. “What are you doing?”
“You need to leave. Now.”
“Good God, love, have you lost your mind?” He has the audacity to force his expression into a worried frown. “What are you honestly going to do with that?”
“Lob it at your head if you don’t leave, after which I will call 911 and tell them that my estranged husband is in my house and refusing to leave.”
His jaw clenches, and his nostrils flare. “Fine. Have it your way. But remember, this is on you when you realize you’ve made yet another mistake. When you eventually come to your senses, and you will, I may not be so nice about taking you back.”
“The bullshit that comes out of your mouth is astounding.” I hug the stupid gnome to my chest and follow him to the foyer, needing to see him leave so I can lock the door.
He pauses in the front entryway, gaze stopping on the red hoodie hanging from the hook—the one Maverick left here.
His eyes narrow. “Red isn’t your color.”
“It’s the school color.” Not untrue.
“It looks awfully big for you.”
He reaches out to touch it, but I smack his hand. “Keep your hands off my things. And oversized hoodies are all the rage. Please don’t stop by again unannounced. Or at all, really, unless it’s to drop off the signed divorce papers.”
He opens the door and pauses. “Aren’t you going to visit your parents over the holidays?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Of course not. Well, have a merry Christmas.”
When I don’t respond in kind, he steps over the threshold. It looks like he’s about to say something else, but I close the door before he can and lock it.
I lean back against it and glance at Maverick’s hoodie hanging on the hook.
What a stupid place to leave it, for anyone who comes to visit to see.
It’s gigantic. It’s more like a dress on me.
Thank God the lettering on the back spelling out Hockey wasn’t visible.
I pluck it from the hook and carry it back to my bedroom, where I hang it in my closet.
I still need to pack for my flight tonight.
And clean up my bedroom.
My thighs are already sore, and my butt hurts like I did a million squats.
As I’m picking up the discarded wrappers and tied-off, cum-filled condom bombs lying on the floor beside my bed, my phone pings.
I have a message from Maverick. His name isn’t applied to his contact, still coming up as a phone number because I didn’t want to make it conspicuous. Or maybe it’s more conspicuous without a name attributed to it.
Maverick: Checking to make sure you’re okay.
I respond right away.
Clover: Everything’s fine. He’s gone and Soph is coming over.
He offers to come back, but I’m aware he has to teach self-defense this morning, and that it would be better to wait a bit, just to make sure Gabriel isn’t going to return. I tell him I’ll be fine, but to message when he’s done with his self-defense class.
I bring my phone with me to the kitchen so I can work on cleaning up that mess. On the upside, the smell of burned pancakes, while unpleasant, does a lot to help cover the smell of sex, latex, and Maverick’s cologne, which I can still smell on myself.
Sophia shows up half an hour later. “Why does it smell like burned food in here?”
“Because I burned food.”
She sets the takeout cups from our favorite local coffee place on the table and scans the kitchen, eyes narrowed.
I drop down in the chair, and she takes the one across from me while I fill her in on everything that’s happened, from Maverick coming over last night, to the mind-blowing sex, and then Gabriel showing up without warning and Maverick having to sneak out the back door.
“I slept with my student, Soph,” I conclude. “Again.”
“Well, technically you slept with him before he was your student and then again when he became your former student, so this can’t come back on you as professionally or ethically damning.”
“But morally.” I press my fingertips against my eyes. “How will this look?”