CHAPTER TWO FALLOUT
CHAPTER
TWO
Fallout
Roscoe didn’t consider what he was doing as he raised his arm and curled his hand into a loose fist, backhanding Cora across her mouth. He only knew he wanted her mouth to stop, so he stopped it. The blow sent her sprawling to the floor.
‘Shut up, Cora,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t talk about her.’ He leaned over his wife, hot with rage. ‘You have nothing to say about it. Do you hear me? Not ever.’ He wouldn’t let her soil the most beautiful thing he’d ever known. ‘She’s none of your business. None of it is.’
Cora had pulled back the layers on his pain, exposing his raw vulnerability, and instead of understanding, she’d sneered.
‘And don’t touch my things. Stay out of my pockets and stay out of my way.’
Cora spat blood onto the floor. She tipped her chin and glared up at him with a fierce defiance, like facing an enemy. That look brought him up short, because it meant that he was the enemy.
He felt himself being pulled back to his senses. He had hit Cora. He, Roscoe, had hit her. After trying so hard not to become that kind of man, it was unthinkable. Like watching someone else take control of his life.
His hand showed no sign of what he’d done, but her face was already bruising. Roscoe panted as he backed away from her, shocked. He grabbed his coat and fled to Fred’s Bar. He needed a few drinks to even out, so he could think things through.
He downed the first three shots one after another and took his time on the fourth.
Sipping slowly, he let himself think about what had happened.
He’d gone home angry, but he’d been right to be angry.
Cora hadn’t even bothered mentioning those articles, and they were going to mean trouble.
She should have stayed away from the reporters in the first place, like he’d said.
But somehow she’d turned the whole thing over, making it about him, bringing up Megan, calling her a whore, when Cora was the one sleeping with Lee.
His temper spiked afresh when he thought of it.
She’d poked him in places she had no right to prod, pushing him too far, until he’d snapped. Now he was the one in the wrong.
Ironic, after he’d spent so much energy trying to do the right thing.
He went to war because it was the right thing to do.
He married Cora because it was the right thing to do.
He stayed with her because it was the right thing to do.
In the middle of all that duty, there was one thing he had wanted for himself, and Cora had made it ugly.
He pulled Megan’s letter out and flattened it on the bar re-reading, once again, her final lines. I do not believe you went home and forgot about me. Forgot about us. So, whatever is keeping you from me, whatever you think we can’t face together, know that we can. Come back and we will.
It hadn’t been ugly. It had been perfect.
He stared into his glass, wishing he could turn back the clock to when he’d been that Roscoe. Her Roscoe. The kind of man a woman like Megan wanted, no matter what.
America was toxic for him. He was trying to be a man in a world that called him boy, and he was failing. He wondered what Megan would think of him if she could see him now.
By his fifth drink, he’d stilled the rage that snapped and snarled in his head, like a rabid dog.
He was calm enough to feel shame and guilt and regret.
With a jolt he remembered the blood he had barely registered, and realized he hadn’t checked to see if Cora was all right.
He put his head into his hands. How had he become this person?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he didn’t know who he was apologizing to. Cora or Megan or himself.