Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
OLIVIA
The door clicks shut behind me. The house feels quieter, just what I need right now. Stillness. I slip off my boots and walk down the hallway and upstairs to my room. My skin still tingles. My lips still burn. The taste of him, the heat, that need that hasn’t faded. What the hell am I doing?
I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, face in my hands.
I can still see it all in my head. I just didn’t let him kiss me; I let him devour me.
I wanted him to kiss me, God help me, I still want it.
And what terrifies me most is that I don’t feel sorry.
I don’t feel guilty at all. I know I shouldn’t be doing that, but I haven’t felt him in so long, and my body needs him.
I should feel guilty, remorseful, or regretful.
But instead, I feel like I’ve woken up. Like something inside me that’s been dormant for years cracked open, and now it won’t close.
I strip out of my clothes one layer at a time. The blouse clings like a memory. The skirt feels too tight, too much. I toss them both into the hamper and step into the bathroom, turning the water hot enough to burn me alive.
Steam curls around me as I step into the shower and let the heat soak into my skin. It should calm me. It doesn’t. Because all I can see is the way he looked at me before he kissed me. Like he’d been holding his breath for years. Like I was something he’d lost and finally found again.
Somewhere inside me, beneath the layers of motherhood and marriage and pretending, I’m still his.
I finish the shower fast, wrap myself in a towel, and move through the routine.
Lotion. Hairbrush. Pajamas. Oversized T-shirt and cotton shorts.
The phone buzzes. David. I consider letting it go to voicemail; I don’t feel like I can face him right now.
His voice will be too much, and that’s when I realize that I am feeling guilty.
But I can’t do that, I can’t avoid what I’m feeling, and he is my husband for fucks sake. So, I answer. "Hey."
“Hey, love, you home already? How was the reading?” This is good, every day, a casual conversation with my husband. “Yeah, just got in. It was fine, some things unexpected, but overall, like any other attorney meeting should be.”
“Okay, okay.” A pause. “Will you be staying there for a while, or when are you thinking of coming back? I don’t want to pressure you; it’s just that a quick trip that just came up at work, and I need to know how to organize things here.”
I rub at my temple. “I don’t know yet. Can we talk about this later? Some paperwork needs to be done, and I’m sure my mom will need me for a couple more days.”
“Sure, okay. I’m heading into dinner with a few execs, so I can’t talk too much anyway.
” Then, faintly, a female laughter in the background.
I know his coworkers and the people he usually dines with.
There are no women in that group. My body goes still, but I shouldn’t push it.
I’m in no place to be the jealous wife right now.
But I do it anyway. “Is there someone else with you?” He hesitates.
“Just the team. We’re at the hotel restaurant.
” I don’t push. But I damn sure know that’s a lie.
But again, I need to let it go. “Right.” I stay silent. “Well. I’ve got to go.”
“Okay. Talk tomorrow.”
“Sure, love you, Olivia,” I hang up and stare at the screen. It’s not just the kiss with Ethan unraveling me now; it’s everything. David. This house. My life. The version of me I keep pretending still fits everywhere, when in reality, I feel like I’m losing myself.
I don’t want to feel like this anymore.
When I go to check on my mom, she is already asleep.
My dad and Anne are in the kitchen, and I know they won’t leave her alone tonight.
So, I went and knocked on Jule’s door. “Wanna go out tonight?” She looks up, surprised.
“You? Out? Where’s my sister?” She says, twisting her head, exanimating me.
“Ha, ha, ha, funny.” I roll my eyes at her.
“I need to decompress, and I don’t want to do it next to Dad and Anne,” She grins.
“Point taken. Let’s go.” We get ready between rooms. I didn’t pack anything for this occasion, so I went through Julia’s closet, which, let’s say, has a very different taste than I do.
Even though it’s freezing out there, I settle for a mini skirt and a blouse that leaves very little to the imagination, but I’ll have my coat on, and I pair it with some knee-high boots.
That will cover what the outfit doesn’t.
We head to Mike’s. A little dive downtown that somehow refuses to die.
The place hasn’t changed at all. Not even a little.
The same flickering neon signs still buzz outside, trying their best to spell out Coors Light but giving up halfway through.
They’ve never exactly screamed “welcoming bar”, more like a possible tetanus situation.
Inside, it smells like spilled beer, fryer grease, and a thousand bad decisions. The floor’s still sticky —visibly sticky— which feels like some kind of health code violation, but also, you know… home.
The same crooked pool table squats in the corner, green felt scarred like it’s survived wars. A group of college kids is crowded around it, all loud laughter and cheap perfume, taking selfies like they discovered dive bars themselves. Bless their hearts.
I catch our reflection in the mirror behind the bar, and for half a second, I look older than I remember. The lighting here is brutal. Murderous, really. I make a mental note to never stand under a Miller Lite sign again.
The bartender looks up and grins, wiping his hands on a towel that’s definitely not clean. “Well, I’ll be damned. Olivia.”
“Mike,” I say, smiling despite myself. “Still here, huh?”
He chuckles. “Somebody’s gotta keep this dump running.”
“Clearly, no one else volunteered,” I shoot back, sliding onto a stool.
The vinyl sighs under me. “What’s it been?
Ten years?” He squints, pretending to count.
“Eight, maybe. You look good. Different, but good.” The last time I stepped foot in this bar was before I got pregnant with my oldest. It was the last time David and I came to town around the Holidays.
“Translation: I aged like a person who pays taxes,” I say, flipping my hair back. He laughs, sets down a napkin like it’s a peace offering. “What’ll it be?”
We order drinks. I go with a bourbon, neat, with a lime wedge tossed in because I like pretending that somehow makes it lighter.
Truth is, I don’t even drink bourbon. At home, it’s wine —always wine— something dry and respectable that matches my glassware and my carefully curated Spotify playlists.
At work events, it’s champagne. Because bubbles say I have it together even when I don’t.
But tonight? Tonight, I’m not that Olivia. Julia’s already halfway through her vodka soda when she nudges me. “Do you want to do a shot?”
“Nope.” She gives me that look, the one that says she’s about to make it her personal mission to corrupt me. “Come on. Just one. Pretty please?” I roll my eyes, but she’s impossible to resist. Always has been. “Fine. Just one.”
The bartender is already reaching for the tequila, lining up glasses with the kind of muscle memory only a man who’s seen too much can manage. He’s mid-pour when a voice slides in behind me, smooth, low, and completely out of my nightmares.
“Make that four.” Every nerve in my body snaps to attention. I don’t turn. I don’t have to. The air shifts, that particular charge that only comes with him. My pulse stumbles, then sprints.
He steps up beside me like the bar’s his stage, and he’s been waiting for his cue. The faintest scent of his cologne hits me —leather, something clean and expensive —and suddenly the room feels too small, too hot.
I take a slow breath that doesn’t help. My reflection in the bar mirror looks composed.
My insides are anything but. He’s grinning, that same glorious, infuriating smirk that should be illegal in at least three states.
“I heard we were taking shots,” he says, his voice all confidence and casual sin. “Might as well join.”
Jack lines up the four shot glasses like he knows he’s part of a scene. Salt, lime, liquid courage. I reach for mine with steady fingers that aren’t actually steady at all.
I try to breathe. I fail. Because Ethan’s here. And the last time he was this close, he ruined me. And from the way he’s looking at me now, I know he remembers every second of it.