Chapter 9 Cheating Minds
CHEATING MINDS
Bea giggled. “What happened to the rule about not meeting at home?”
“It’s different when no one is here,” Jesse grunted.
Clothes rustled, and something thumped to the ground. Then Eliana’s heart squeezed at the unmistakable sound of their mattress creaking. The sound echoed through her like a siren, warning of the storm to follow.
She could feel her friend’s stare on her face, but her vision tunneled, and she found herself incapable of looking away from the device in Clem’s hand. She wanted to shut it down, to not have to listen as the world she knew imploded once again, but she needed to hear it.
The confirmation she’d wanted. The validation she’d craved. And damn it all, the lawyer was right. It hurt like a motherfucker.
“Wait, wait!” Bea’s voice turned coy, “Which side is Eliana’s?”
“Why does it matter?” Jesse answered, his words stilted, muffled, punctuated with the sound of grotesquely wet kisses.
She moaned, her voice growing huskier, “I want you to fuck me where she sleeps . . . however you want. A way she never lets you.”
Whether or not the creepiness of Bea’s request registered in Jesse’s brain, Eliana couldn’t be sure, for that was not the part of the sentence he latched onto. She could hear the excitement in the pace of his breathing.
“Anything I want? Come on,” he said, his voice low and dark as the bed creaked again. “Flip over.”
A smack, skin against skin, reverberated through the speaker, and Eliana slapped a hand over her mouth when her stomach lurched, gasping aloud. They were in her room. In her bed. Like none of it mattered. Fourteen years of marriage. A decade of friendship. And it meant nothing.
But before she could spiral for a second time, Clem let loose a sound of fury, like a bird of prey, dropping the device as if it burned her. The sounds cut out, much to Eliana’s relief, and she glanced up at Clem—realizing how far gone her friend was.
She barely had a moment to process Clem’s intentions before she was running, yanking her keys off the hook by the door. Eliana was hot on her heels as they reached the porch steps, and she took a running leap from the top, tackling Clem into the grass beside the sidewalk.
“Let me up, Eliana, I have things to do.”
“I can’t let you go to jail for murder, Clem. I love you too much.”
Clem rolled, trying to buck Eliana off, but she’d trained her too well. No matter how she twisted or bucked or rolled, she couldn’t shake Eliana off her back.
After a while, she relaxed, splaying out prone, her cheek to the dirt. “I’m calm now, you can get off.”
“I don’t believe you,” Eliana answered, knowing her friend too well to be fooled. As wild and unpredictable as Clem appeared, the woman had a fuse that stretched for miles. But when it met the mark, the devastation was unparalleled.
They lay quietly for a while, processing.
“You really buried the lead there, huh?” Clem mumbled.
Eliana snorted, the sound watery in her own ears. “I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected.”
“I didn’t even consider . . .” Clem started, then stopped. “I always thought that he truly . . .” She paused again, an angry breath escaping her lips. “You’re going to have to let me up eventually. Your bladder is weaker than mine.”
“I’m not afraid to pee on you.”
Clem swore. “Fine. I swear on my eternal love and devotion to Jeremy Sumpter that I will not kill, maim, nor castrate your husband. Tonight.”
Eliana relaxed her hold, rolling onto her back and staring up at the stars. She’d noted the tonight loophole, but she’d handle that later.
It was a beautiful night. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and with the minimal light pollution of Clem’s quiet home in the mountains, she could see every star sparkling brightly above.
Thousands of brilliant fireflies, dancing across the midnight sky, completely oblivious to how her world was falling to pieces.
“It’s weird that you’ve held onto your Peter Pan obsession for this long,” Eliana said. “We’re in our thirties. And I think he got married.”
Clem fell back, letting the edge of her head rest against Eliana’s. “The heart wants what it wants, El. Now what are we going to do?”
“I’ve already met with a lawyer,” she said, amazed at how steady her voice sounded. “I was pretty sure it was Bea. But I’d still hoped . . . that it was some crazy fluke or a giant coincidence.”
“The first rule of crime scene investigation–”
“I know . . . I know,” Eliana interrupted. “There is no such thing as a coincidence.” She sighed, reciting Clem’s words, “The heart wants what it wants.”
“And does your heart want Jesse? Still?”
Eliana stared at the stars as she considered the question and how best to explain the convoluted mess of feelings roiling within. But when she felt Clem’s hand grab her own, threading their fingers, a sob escaped, and with it, the words followed.
“No,” Eliana cried. “I don’t want Jesse.
Not now. But I want him not to have done this.
I trusted him. I loved him with everything in me.
And he just didn’t care. I want him to have meant the words he’d said.
He was supposed to have my back, instead of stabbing me in it.
I want to understand. We’ve invested so many years, so much work, into this marriage, and now it’s for nothing?
How could he? Why would he? Why would she?
What about Milo? Do they think we’re that blind?
That naive? How could I have misjudged two people so completely, Clem?
I want to wake up, and this all have been some crazy, twisted nightmare. ”
She sucked in a shuddering breath, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as she kept her gaze locked on the stars above.
“Even now, knowing about the money and seeing how I’ve let myself be reduced to this pathetic state, with no resume and no references and no credit, I still wish it was all a lie.
Because to be betrayed like that, by two people I trusted so much, how am I supposed to move on from that? How could they do that to me, Clem?”
She grew quiet as she considered her own words.
“But I can’t think about feelings because I need to be strong.
I have to think about the girls and what the future will look like.
I have to get a job and make a plan so that when the time is right, I can walk away, free and clear—secure in the knowledge that he’ll never hold power over me again. ”
“And you’re sure you don’t want me to intervene?”
“No.” Eliana huffed a laugh. “I really don’t. I would’ve told you everything sooner . . . but I knew you’d probably need a cool-down period, and I can’t really tackle you through a text.”
“But we are going to get revenge, right? We’re not letting them get away with this?”
“Absolutely not,” Eliana seethed. “That’s why I need evidence.
Before I decide where I want to take this, I need to know how far he’s gone, what all lines he’s crossed.
He may be a shit husband below the surface, but he’s a good dad.
I always believed so . . . before. But now I don’t know anything for certain.
I just . . . I don’t want to hurt our girls for the sake of my pride. ”
Clem was silent for a beat. “Do you remember that show we used to watch all the time? Criminal Minds?”
“With the sexy nerd?”
“Yes, Dr. Reid. Anyway, why don’t we just do what they did?
To beat the criminal, you have to understand the criminal.
Their minds work differently, so we get in their heads.
Figure out their motivations. Then use it against them.
Get in that same mindset and fuck them up.
” Clem raised her free hand, waving it before them as if showcasing a headline, “Cheating Minds . . . it has a nice ring to it.”
Eliana nodded. “And once I have all the information—once I understand and I’m in a better situation—I can lay all the cards out on the table. I can be the one who chooses what happens next.”
“Hell yes!” Clem cheered, squeezing her hand. “Bury their asses. Literally.”
Eliana groaned, then tilted her head to side-eye her friend. “I genuinely worry about you. A lot.”
“You shouldn’t,” Clem said, grinning up at Eliana. “Do you know why there are so many more men convicted of murder compared to women?”
“Testosterone?” Eliana asked, scrunching her nose at the random question.
“No, I didn’t ask why men committed more murders,” Clem huffed. “That’s a different discussion. I asked why men were convicted of more.”
Eliana shrugged.
“Women don’t get caught.”
Eliana squinted, studying her friend’s too-honest expression, and then turned her gaze back to the sky. “I’m just going to pretend the last minute of this conversation never happened.”
“That’s your prerogative.” Clem nodded. “So what’s next?”
“Next, I’m going to do what I should have done after I saw the flowers,” Eliana sighed. “I’m going to talk to Milo.”