6. Chapter 6
Chapter six
Lina
The lunch rush dies down. The shop is quiet enough to hear the hum of the refrigerator beneath the espresso machine.
I open it and frown. One oat milk. One coconut milk.
I gawk at the empty shelves. “We’re almost out of both coconut milk and oat milk,” I say to Val over my shoulder.
Val continues wiping down the counter. “Impossible,” she says.
“We have one carton left of each,” I say.
Her head snaps up. “No,” she says eyes wide.
“Yup,” I affirm, gesturing with my head.
She abandons the rag and marches over to inspect the empty shelves herself. The second she sees it, she gasps.
“Oh crap. The delivery won’t be here until tomorrow morning. This is an emergency,” Val says.
“We serve suburban moms and fantasy readers, of course it’s an emergency,” I laugh.
“We need milk before the evening rush,” I say, pointedly emphasizing the word need.
Val sighs. “I was having such a good day.”
“You can come with me,” I tell her, grabbing my keys.
Val perks up.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Sprouts. It’s ten minutes away,” I add.
Val grabs her purse. “Ooh yes please. I love that store.”
I grab a cart while Val scrolls through the grocery list on her phone, mumbling ingredients under her breath.
“Heavy cream...flour...butter...” She glances up. “And milk.”
The automatic doors slide open, releasing a blast of cold air and the familiar scent of fresh bread from the bakery. We barely make it ten feet inside before I notice the subtle shift in Val’s trajectory.
She’s no longer walking toward the dairy aisle. She’s drifting. Like a moth to a flame. Straight toward the prepared foods.
I sigh.
“No.”
“What?” She blinks innocently, though the corner of her mouth twitches.
“We’re here for milk.”
“I know.”
“You have that look.”
“What look?” She presses a hand dramatically to her chest.
“The one that costs us money.”
She scoffs. “That’s incredibly judgmental.”
“It’s incredibly accurate.”
“I’ve changed.”
I stop pushing the cart and just stare at her. She lasts all of three seconds before grinning.
“Okay, maybe not.”
“You bought a twenty-four-dollar candle the last time we came.”
“It smelled amazing.”
“It smelled like vanilla.”
“It smelled like generational wealth,” she shoots back without missing a beat.
Laughter bursts out before I can stop it.
Only Val could justify an overpriced candle by assigning it a tax bracket.
Then her eyes widen. “Ooh.”
I follow her gaze to the sushi counter.
“Don’t.”
“But look at it.”
“It’s grocery store sushi.”
“It’s fresh grocery store sushi.”
I tilt my head in agreement. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet...” She bumps my shoulder. “...you still choose me.”
I pretend to think about it.
“Questionable life decision.”
She laughs. “So...sushi?”
I point toward the dairy section. “Three minutes.”
“Five.”
“Three.”
She sighs like I’ve asked her to sacrifice a limb.
“Fine.”
She heads toward the sushi counter with the enthusiasm of a kid running toward an amusement park.
“You love me,” she calls over her shoulder.
I push the cart toward the milk aisle, shaking my head.
“Unfortunately,” I call back, smiling anyway.
Val disappears toward the sushi display, and I head in the opposite direction.
I get to the milk section and begin loading my cart with oat milk. Then coconut milk.
Just as I’m about to walk away, I grab two more cartons and hold them against my hip before turning to my cart—nearly walking straight into someone.
“Oh, sorry,” I say, loading the other cartons in my basket.
The woman steps back.
“Lina?”
My entire frame tenses up.
No. Absolutely fucking not.
I peek up and it’s her.
Cassie.
The last time I’d seen her, she was standing in my kitchen pretending to be my friend, while she was sleeping with my husband behind my back.
She’s shorter than I remember. Her blonde hair still fights a losing battle against years of bleach.
She’s oddly wearing makeup, something she never really did before.
Her nails are freshly done, and hanging from her shoulder is a Gucci purse I know she couldn’t afford a few years ago. Never on her salary.
The purse catches my attention because it isn’t really about the purse. It’s about the performance. The designer handbag. The oversized diamond on her finger. Every piece feels carefully selected to announce that she’s made it. That she’s won. That she’s now living the life she always wanted.
Before Cole, she was barely paying her bills. Now she wears wealth like a costume that doesn’t fit naturally.
Maybe that’s why she keeps touching her stomach—why she smiles so hard. She’s desperate for everyone to notice. Desperate for people to believe she’s happy—that they’re happy. Despite everything it took to get here.
And maybe she is. Maybe she wakes up every morning thrilled with the life she’s built.
But all I can see is the same woman who spent years studying me.
The same Cassie who complimented everything.
My hair. My clothes. My cooking. The same Cassie who gushed over our house—how beautiful it was, how lucky I was, how perfect everything looked.
I’d never clocked it as envy, hunger or calculation.
At the time it seemed harmless. Flattering, even. The kind of small kindness women offer one another without thinking twice. I’d taken it at face value. Never once considering she was making a checklist instead of giving compliments.
This is the same Cassie who was always a little too eager to sit next to Cole—a little too quick to laugh at his jokes.
I noticed it. Of course I noticed it. But I’d dismissed it.
She’s friendly. She’s with his nephew. That would be disgusting.
Family dinners. Game nights. Holidays spent shoulder to shoulder.
I never let my mind go there because the alternative was unthinkable.
Because believing she would cheat with her boyfriends uncle, meant admitting I was surrounded by people capable of that kind of betrayal.
I’d trusted the proximity. Trusted the relationships.
Trusted that someone in the room had a line they wouldn’t cross.
Because Cole and his nephew Steven were close. Like brothers. Steven and I had grown up together. Same high school. Same football games. Same dumb teenage drama. We were friends long before I officially became part of the Allister family. Close enough that trust felt automatic.
Which made what happened hit both of us like a brick wall. Steven lost his best friend and his uncle in one blow. Betrayed by the man who helped raise him and the woman he loved—the mother of his children. Everything Steven believed was solid collapsed at once.
And me? I lost my husband to that same woman. The same Cassie.
The overlap is almost laughable for how cruel it is. An uncle sleeping with his nephew’s girlfriend. And the girlfriend getting pregnant by both men.
The entire situation was so absurd it sounded made up whenever I tried explaining it. It wasn’t only messy and complicated. It was…twisted. The kind of betrayal that blurs every boundary that should exist between people.
Everything folded in on itself until nothing was distinguishable from harm. A family imploded in real time while Cole and Cassie pretended nothing was wrong.
There wasn’t just one villain. There were two. Two selfish people choosing themselves over everyone around them and leaving the rest of us to sort through the wreckage.
But Cole choosing to cheat with her of all women had always confused me.
I may be a little vain about myself and think I’m pretty, but that’s not truly the reason I questioned his choice. I questioned his choice because Cassie wasn’t his type. At least not the type he spent years convincing everyone was his type.
If you’d asked me back then, who Cole would eventually cheat with, I would’ve pictured some gorgeous bartender with a wicked smile. A fitness model. A stripper. Someone effortlessly sexy and impossible to ignore.
Not Cassie.
Then again, maybe I’d misunderstood what Cole actually wanted. Cassie never challenged him. Never questioned him. Never disagreed with him. She fed his ego like it was her full-time job.
You’re so clever, Cole. You’re such an amazing husband, Cole.
The memories alone make me want to gag.
It may not have been about beauty. Maybe it was about worship. And Cassie had always been willing to kneel.