Page 107 of About that Fling
“I know!” Shawn snapped his fingers. “The bathroom.”
Everyone turned to look at him. “It’s over there,” Adam said, pointing to the far corner.
“No, I mean that’s where I know you from. You were talking with Jenna last time we were here. I wouldn’t have noticed, but she was gone a long time.” He cocked his head to the side, considering. “Wait, that’s who you had to run off and meet that night?”
Jenna felt all the blood drain from her head. She gripped her root beer glass, swallowing hard. “What? No, we just ran into each other. We’d been working together and stopped to say hello and?—”
“Hey, it’s no big deal,” Shawn said good-naturedly, returning his attention to his phone. “Just trying to figure out why he looked so familiar.”
“Glad we could piece it together for you.” Adam didn’t look very glad. Not that it mattered. With the mystery solved, Shawn’s attention was already back on his phone. Jenna breathed a sigh of relief.
“Wait, how come you never mentioned this?”
Jenna cut her eyes across the table. Mia was frowning, her own phone gripped in her hand.
“What?” Jenna said, palms feeling sweaty all of a sudden. “I told you I came here for pizza that night—August fifteenth—you know?”
She waited for Mia to get sidetracked, to recognize the date and abandon her line of questioning. But Mia shook her head.
“I’m not talking about the whole running-into-your-ex-on-the-anniversary-of-the-miscarriage thing, though I do think?—”
“Miscarriage?” Adam frowned.
Shawn looked up from his phone, apparently sensing he’d missed something major. “What?”
“Nothing.” Jenna said, digging her nails into her palms. “Go back to your game.”
Jenna felt Adam’s eyes drilling into her like lasers. She swallowed hard, her gaze still locked on Mia’s disapproving one. She opened her mouth to explain, but Mia shook her head and held up her phone.
“I’m not talking about that. Mark just texted. He said Ellen wanted me to ask you whether you liked the .32 Kel-Tec you were firing with or the .22 Ruger Mark III Hunter Adam had. She’s planning to buy a new gun.” She looked from Jenna to Adam, then back again. “What’s going on here?”
Jenna swallowed again, wishing like hell she hadn’t emptied her root beer or given her wine to Adam. The last bite of pizza formed a sticky lump in the back of her throat, or maybe that was a thick wad of guilt. On the table, Jenna’s phone buzzed. She shoved it away, trying to keep her focus on coming up with an explanation that might appease everyone. Trying to keep from panicking.
“Jenna?” Adam asked. She looked at him, her heart twisting when she saw the stricken look on his face.
“I—”
“Sweetheart?” Gertie put a hand on hers and Jenna swiveled to look at her. Surely her aunt could find some way to fix this. Jenna’s mother would have certainly known what to do.
Everything’s under control.
But nothing about this felt under control. Jenna’s palms felt sticky and her gut felt like someone just kicked her with steel-toed boots. Everyone stared at her—Mia and Adam, even Shawn had looked up from his phone.
Only Gertie wasn’t looking at her. She was frowning down at Jenna’s phone, looking more than a little perplexed. “Why is my agent calling you?”
Jenna’s mouth went dry. “I, uh—I’m not sure.”
“You’ve spoken with her recently?”
“I, um.” Panic welled up in her chest. What the hell had she done? “She called the house sometime last week, but?—”
“You’ve obviously been in contact beyond that.” Gert nudged the phone toward her. “You’ve got her name and number programed into your phone.”
Her expression was more curious than angry, but Jenna’s palms went from sticky to slick with fear and dread and guilt. She opened her mouth to speak, but realized she didn’t have any words at all. Not for anyone. She looked from Shawn to Mia to Gert to Adam, all of them staring at her with some mix of confusion and anger and betrayal.
Jenna stood up, legs shaking as she knocked her empty root beer glass over. She had to get out of here. She had to leave now, before everything came crashing down around her. If she could just rewind, take back all the lies and half-truths and cover stories that weren’t covering anything at all anymore.
Everyone at the table sat staring, some confused, some angry, some hurt. “I’m sorry,” she said, righting her empty glass, only to knock it over again. “I didn’t know—I just—excuse me.”
