Chapter 22
CATARINA
I rolled my suitcase from the Lyft down the sidewalk of Dustin’s street. The smells of spring were imminent, and I was grateful for the surprising relative warmth of the afternoon, though it was still below freezing.
An elementary school was across the street from Dustin’s brownstone, and moms and dads played with their kids in the park connected to the school, a fun Sunday afternoon activity.
Stopping for a moment, I saw a dad pretending to be a monster and chase his daughter while she screamed in delight. I smiled from the inside, and my mind went to Dustin’s whole ‘big brain’ routine. It was like he couldn’t turn off the joking side of him.
At the time, I hated it, but now I found myself wondering how he’d be as a dad.
He was right, too, about what he’d said in the immigration office, although I had been angry about it at the time.
A kid with my brains and his athletic prowess would be a force. But more than that, Dustin would be the best dad ever.
The chasing dad caught up to his daughter in the park, and she screeched loudly as he scooped her up. “Gotcha, you little devil!” he said.
Realizing I was officially the weirdo who had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and was staring at other people’s kids, I took my phone out and faked like I was texting someone, then crossed the street, making a beeline for Dustin’s apartment.
I sucked in a breath as I thought about the costume I had packed for tonight.
We hadn’t seen each other for a full ten days since he had been traveling with the team—including Valentine’s day.
Not that Valentine’s day was a big deal to me, but I thought we might as well try to have some fun with it.
Besides, I liked playing dress-up and Dustin had requested it. Well, he’d requested a surprise, technically, and I got to use my creativity.
I opened the door to his house, turning the key, and headed into the first floor.
Dustin was on a plane across the continental United States right now, so I wasn’t expecting anyone to be home.
Much less to hear what I was hearing.
A woman’s voice was coming from the kitchen, blasting James Taylor and singing along to How Sweet it is to be Loved by You.
As I made my way, slowly, through the dining room, and she came into view, my stomach coiled into a tight knot.
There was a woman in a French maid uniform cleaning Dustin’s house. An attractive woman in a sexy French maid uniform, I might add.
I felt my blood pressure shoot through the roof. She was so into what she was doing that she didn’t even notice me come through the door.
Whipping out my phone. I sent Dustin a quick text asking him why the fuck there was a naked woman in his apartment, then cleared my throat, loudly, so she could hear me.
She converted her singing into humming, but didn’t stop the dance moves she was making as she dusted the kitchen counter.
“Hey big boy,” she said, then turned around with a giant smile on her face. The smile dissipated when she was it wasn’t Dustin staring back at her.
“Uh, what are you doing here?” she asked.
My eyes widened. “What am I doing here? Are you serious?”
Her cheeks reddened. “Shit. You’re the wife, aren’t you?”
I held out my hand, my heart beating out of my chest. Anger spread through me. I took Dustin for a joker. But not a cheater. I guess this was where my little Las Vegas fairy tale was meant to end.
“That’s me! So, I guess this is one of those ‘other woman’ scenes,” I said. “So let’s just skip the fighting and get right down to it. How long has this been going on? Have you been doing this all month?”
The woman was actually shaking as she stood behind the kitchen counter. She opened her mouth to speak, but words didn’t come out.
I couldn’t help it; I softened a little.
“Hey, look,” I said. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Dustin knows he’s married and he shouldn’t have been talking to you.”
Then she did something unexpected.
She broke down, folded her arms on the kitchen counter, and bawled her eyes out. “Ididn’tthinkhismarraigewasrealI’msosorry,” she wailed.
“Um, what?”
“Valentine’sdaywasadisastermyfiancewascheatingonmeandIneededapickmeupandDustin’sthebestsexIeverhad.”
Okay, okay,” I said. “Slow down.” I walked over to her side of the kitchen counter. My sympathetic nature took over, though I remembered Dustin had specifically told me puck bunnies weren’t on his mind.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, finally a few coherent words. “I really thought this marriage was like, a front-type thing for your immigration papers.”
“What do you . . .”
“I’m his lawyer,” she sniffled. “Jenny. I feel just awful.”
“Catarina,” I said.
She took a deep breath and composed herself.
“Look, here’s the deal. Dustin and I hooked up a long time ago.
I just . . . I could never get him out of my head.
We stayed friends. And I’ve been having a rough winter romantically.
I thought maybe we could rekindle things if I surprised him.
And when we met up for coffee earlier this month to go over your immigration situation, he mentioned he was helping you out, and that it was just an ‘arrangement.’ I figured it was just an ‘on paper but not for real’ marriage.
God, I’m such an idiot. My mom always said, Jenny, you’re book smart but you’ve got to work on street smarts. ”
I felt a sinking feeling grip me. “He said that he was just ‘helping me out?’”
She nodded. “I’m paraphrasing. I think I should just shut up and get out of here.”
I felt foolish all of a sudden. Not fifteen minutes ago I was picturing Dustin as a dad. This was a reality check. We weren’t on that trajectory—far from it. We had a ‘mutual agreement.’ We were helping each other out, that was all.
Jenny walked over to a bag she had in the front room and threw on a hoodie over her French maid outfit. “Again, I’m really sorry. Dustin did not invite me over. You should know that.”
“Wait,” I said. “This might sound crazy, but, do you want to go grab a drink?”
“Are you serious? Don’t you hate me?” she asked as she pulled on pants.
“Hate is a strong word. It sounds like you know Dustin decently well.”
“Well, yeah. We went to college together.”
Curiosity nipped at me. In spite of being married to him, and having met his family, I felt like he kept his guard up in certain ways—his past being one of them.
“So, you’re not totally wrong about our little arrangement,” I admitted. “And . . . it seems like you could use a friend right now. No offense.”
She rubbed her shoulder a little awkwardly for a moment, then twisted up a lock of her black hair. “You know what? Let’s do it.”
It was awkward at first, but after a couple of champagne daiquiris at the bar around the corner from Dustin’s house, the conversation started flowing between Jenny and me.
“Yeah, he never dated anyone in college. No one.” She rolled her eyes. “Although he claims he got ghosted and his heart broken by some one-night stand senior year. Like anyone would ever ghost him, though.”
“He got his heart broken? Yeah, I have a hard time believing that one, too. When did you guys date?”
“A few years ago.”
I exhaled a loud breath.
“I know. I’m clearly not over him. He used to like it when I cleaned his place in a French Maid’s outfit. After my fiancé and I separated and I was cleaning out my things, I saw I still had a key to his place. It was a long shot. God, I’m an idiot.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up about it. Have you been texting him or anything?”
“Just stuff about your arrangement. The way he talked about it, he made it seem like you two were, you know, married and friends with benefits. Or something. He was vague.”
I nodded. “To be honest, I don’t really know what we are, if it’s more than that or not.”
“I know I’m crazy. Damnit, I should never have gone out with him. We were just friends for a long time,” she continued. “Until this one girl he was with . . .” She took a sip of her drink. “I don’t know what she did to him. Messed him up good, though.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. So Dustin had a ghost from the past who affected him still. I tried not to make a big deal about it, but something about her tone felt alarming. If she knew Dustin in college, she knew more about his past than I did, most likely.
“Who was she?” I asked.
She waved her hand. “Oh, he never talked about the details. Just said he couldn’t believe some people.
It wasn’t like him to be so cagey. But when we, uh—stop me if this is too much detail.
” She leaned in and whispered. “When we did it, he was like, incredibly angry. It was passionate, but I could tell there was fire in his eyes. In his . . . everything.”
“Okay, you can stop now,” I said, shuddering.
“Sorry,” she said, then leaned back and finished her drink. Her eyes flickered up to me. She really was a beautiful girl. “So if you don’t mind me asking, what is the deal with you and Dustin? From your perspective?”
My phone buzzed with a text from him. Speak of the devil. I didn’t answer it.
“He’s an interesting man.” Extremely attractive. “But I feel like he’s got this veneer no one can break through, sometimes. For a moment I’ll catch him saying something serious and then he backs up to be all jokey again.”
A lot beneath the surface.
I sighed. “He’s too cocky for his own damn good, sometimes. A lot of times.”
She sighed, too. “I know. But . . . he’s sort of earned the right, hasn’t he?”
I nodded in agreement and chuckled. I couldn’t believe the surrealness of this conversation. Here I was, conversing with my husband’s ex, and not even feeling jealous.
I was feeling jealous, however, of this unnamed woman who apparently still had a hold on Dustin’s feelings. He’d mentioned Jenny in passing, as his friend and a lawyer who was helping us out by taking a closer look at the legal proceedings to do with my immigration.
At no point, however, had Dustin even mentioned this mysterious ex—was she even an ex?—from his past. Someone once told me it was always the ones your significant other didn’t mention that you had to watch out for.
A confusing array of thoughts and emotions poured through me. Did I have the right to be jealous of a girl from Dustin’s past, even though we were essentially a marriage of convenience?
In truth, I didn’t know the answer. But this whole situation brought to light a blind spot in my situation with Dustin, and the more I considered everything, the more I knew we needed to have a define-the-relationship talk.
“So,” I decided to ask Jenny. “I have a question for you. You’re gorgeous. You’ve got your shit together . . .”
“Well, aside from thinking it was a good idea to clean my friend’s house mostly naked.”
“You know what, let’s give you a pass on that one because I bet if he were available—that would be an incredibly hot gesture that a guy would love.”
She giggled. Even I couldn’t believe I was being so nonchalant about the whole thing, but something about Jenny put me at ease.
“My question is, why do you think it’s so hard to find what you want when it comes to romance?”
Before she could answer, our server came by and we ordered another round.
“I’ve been dating for some time now,” she said.
“And guys just never measure up to everything I want. And I feel like if I drop my standards, I’m doing myself a disservice.
So I’ll go on one or two dates with a guy and then decide I’m wasting my time.
I thought I had found the right guy with my fiancé, but I was wrong about that. ”
“We’re definitely kindred spirits,” I said.
For the next hour or so, Jenny and I chatted about life, dating, and work. It was one of those odd conversations where I got the feeling we had known each other for a long time, even though we had just met.
As we ordered another round, a couple of good looking guys came up to our table.
“Hey,” one of them said, tipping his chin up at Jenny. “What are you ladies celebrating tonight?”
“Celebrating? I’m in a hoodie,” Jenny deadpanned at the guy. He was tall and cuteish. I was trying to make up my mind if he was hot or not. His day-old beard gave him a rugged sort of look, but I couldn’t tell if I was just giving him the benefit of the doubt because I was on drink number three.
He didn’t know it, but he’d certainly picked the right time to flirt with Jenny. She was open to his advances.
His friend flirted with me, and I sat back and enjoyed the show. After a while, I asked them if they wanted to take the party back to my place around the corner.
They said yes.
I liked Jenny, and she needed a win right now. I’d be a good wing girl and bring her back.