Chapter 2 Things That Dont Add Up
The next two weeks pass the way they always pass.
Blake goes to work. I go to work. We eat dinner together most nights and watch TV and talk about nothing important and fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed.
He makes me laugh sometimes and I make him roll his eyes and the apartment feels the way it's always felt.
Comfortable. Familiar. The place where we're supposed to be waiting out the months until we can afford something better.
But small things keep catching my attention. Things I probably would have ignored a month ago. Things I'm not able to ignore anymore.
One night Blake tells me he's going to be late because they're behind on a framing job in North Pinehurst. He says the foreman wants the crew to stay until they finish a section and he probably won't be home until eight or nine.
I tell him that's fine. I heat up leftover chicken and rice and eat on the couch while watching a show he hates about women renovating houses.
When he gets home at quarter to nine he looks tired and he smells like sawdust and sweat and he kisses me on the forehead and asks what I'm watching.
I tell him. He makes a face. Everything is normal.
Three days later he tells me he's working late again.
Same job. Same story about being behind on the framing.
But this time when he comes through the door at eight-thirty something is different.
He doesn't smell like the jobsite. He doesn't smell like sawdust or sweat or the cheap sunscreen the crew passes around.
He smells clean. His hair is slightly damp at the back of his neck and his clothes look like the ones he put on this morning, not the work clothes he wears to the site.
I almost ask him about it. The question forms in my mouth and sits there for a few seconds before I swallow it.
Maybe the site has a portable shower. Maybe he stopped at Ronnie's to clean up before coming home.
Maybe it was hot enough today that he ran his head under a hose.
There are explanations. There are always explanations if you want them badly enough.
I decide I'm being paranoid and I go back to my show and Blake sits next to me and puts his hand on my knee and says he's starving. I tell him there's chicken in the fridge. He gets up to make himself a plate. Normal. Everything is normal.
That Friday Blake tells me he's going out with the guys. Chase and some of the Premiere Builders crew. They're going to O'Shea's which is a bar on the east side of town where construction workers and tradespeople go because the beers are cheap and nobody cares if your boots are dirty.
"Don't wait up," he says while he's getting dressed.
He puts on a clean shirt. Not a nice shirt exactly but not the ratty t-shirts he usually wears when he's drinking with his work buddies.
He's also wearing his good jeans, the dark ones I bought him for his birthday last year.
I notice. But I don't say anything because maybe he just grabbed whatever was on top of the pile.
He kisses me on his way out and tells me he loves me and then he's gone.
I spend Friday night on the couch with a glass of wine and my phone.
I text Sierra around eight asking what she's doing and she says she's at home watching trash TV with a face mask on.
We go back and forth for a while about a mutual acquaintance who apparently just got a terrible haircut at a salon in Hannaford.
Sierra sends me a photo and I cringe professionally.
Alana posts something on social media about a movie she just watched.
I scroll past it. Hailey hasn't posted anything in a couple of days which isn't unusual for her.
She goes through phases of being active online and then disappearing for a while.
Blake gets home around midnight. He's not drunk but he's had a few beers.
He's in a good mood. He tells me about some argument between two of the Premiere Builders guys over a football bet that got heated enough that the bartender had to tell them to keep it down.
He acts out both sides of the argument while he's taking off his shoes and I laugh because Blake has always been a good storyteller.
He knows how to land the details. He knows how to make a nothing anecdote feel entertaining.
We go to bed. He falls asleep fast. I don't think anything of any of it.
The following Tuesday I'm at the grocery store on Route 4. It's the bigger one near the pharmacy. I'm in the produce section trying to decide between two bags of salad that both look like they've given up on life when I hear someone say my name.
It's Chase. He's got a basket with exactly three things in it. A six-pack of beer. A bag of chips. A frozen pizza. If there's a more accurate portrait of how Chase Martin feeds himself I have never seen it.
"Hey, Lara. How's it going?"
"Hey, Chase. Living the dream. I see you're really prioritizing nutrition."
He looks down at his basket and shrugs without even a little bit of shame. "Sierra keeps telling me I'm going to die of scurvy. I told her I'll start eating vegetables when vegetables start tasting better."
"That frozen pizza is not going to help your case."
"I'm beyond saving, Lara. Just let me go."
I laugh because Chase is easy to like. He's been part of the group since high school and he's one of those people who is exactly the same whether you see him at a party or at the grocery store on a random Tuesday evening. No pretense. No act. What you see is what you get.
We talk for a few minutes about nothing important. He mentions that Ronnie is trying to organize a group hike somewhere and nobody wants to commit. I tell him I'd probably go if it's not too far. He says he'll believe it when he sees it.
Then the conversation turns and I mention Friday night.
I don't even remember exactly how it comes up.
I think I say something about Blake's story from O'Shea's.
Maybe I'm teasing Chase about being part of the argument Blake described.
Maybe I'm just making conversation. But I say something that references Friday night at O'Shea's and Chase gives me this look.
Not a suspicious look. Not a knowing look. Just confusion.
"Friday?" he says. "I wasn't out Friday."
Everything in the grocery store seems to go very still.
"Blake said you guys went to O'Shea's," I say. My voice sounds the same as before. I'm making sure of that.
Chase shakes his head slowly. "Nah. I was home all weekend. I think he might have gone with some of the work crew though. I just wasn't there."
"Oh." I pause for exactly long enough. "I probably misheard him. You know how Blake tells stories. Half the details change every time."
Chase laughs. "Yeah. That sounds about right."
We talk for another minute about something else. I'm not tracking the words anymore. My mouth is moving and sounds are coming out but the part of my brain responsible for the conversation has separated from the part that is now replaying Friday night in perfect detail.
Blake specifically mentioned Chase. He didn't say "the guys" in some vague way where I might have filled in Chase's name on my own. He said Chase was going to be there. He said Chase owed him twenty dollars from a bet and he wanted to collect it in person. He told me that specific detail.
That was a lie. Not a mix-up. Not a miscommunication. He named someone who wasn't there and he invented a reason for that person to be there. That takes thought. That takes intention.
Chase waves goodbye and heads toward the checkout. I stand in the produce section holding a bag of sad lettuce and I feel something cold settle into my stomach.
My first instinct is to explain it away.
Blake is lying about who he was with because of the gambling.
He went to O'Shea's and bet on something he didn't want me to know about and he used Chase's name so I wouldn't ask questions.
That's bad. That's a problem. But it's a problem I understand.
It's a money problem. Money problems have solutions.
That's the explanation I settle on because it's the one I can live with.
I buy the salad and drive home and don't mention Chase to Blake.
But the explanation doesn't sit right. It leaves too many gaps.
If Blake went to O'Shea's to gamble on a game why did he put on his good jeans?
Why did he wear a clean shirt instead of the old ones?
Blake doesn't dress up for O'Shea's. He doesn't dress up to drink with coworkers.
The only time Blake puts effort into what he's wearing is when we go out together or when we see people outside of his usual crew.
I file that thought away somewhere I don't have to look at it.
Later that week I'm at Alana's apartment with Sierra and Hailey.
It's a casual evening. Nothing special. Alana made pasta with garlic bread and we're sitting around her kitchen table drinking wine out of glasses that don't match.
Alana is telling us about a guy she went on a date with who spent the entire dinner talking about his ex-girlfriend.
Not in a casual way. In a detailed and emotional way that included reading text messages aloud from his phone.
"He literally showed me their breakup conversation," Alana says. "I was eating my salad and this man pulled out his phone and started scrolling through a month of messages."
"Oh no," Sierra says.
"And then he asked me what I thought he should have said differently. Like I was his therapist. Like I was getting paid."
"What did you do?" I ask.
"I told him I thought he should have said goodbye about three months sooner and then I asked for the check."