Page 54 of About that Fling
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, obviously I know about what happened with your marriage. She was up front with me from day one. She takes full responsibility for the affair, Adam.”
“Okay,” he said. It sounded like agreement, but his jaw hadn’t unclenched one bit.
“I’m just saying, I think she would have told me if the affair broke up two marriages instead of one. That’s all.”
“Does it matter?”
“Maybe,” she said, not sure why it did. The line moved forward and Jenna shuffled along with it, only dimly aware of the hum of female voices around her and the distant crack of gunfire. “Is it possible Mark never told Mia he and Ellen were trying to patch things up?”
“Anything’s possible. Is anyone ever the villain in their own version of a story?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that when someone has an affair—” his face twisted a little on that word, and Jenna longed to reach for his hand, but she stayed still. “When someone has an affair, that person can always find a way to justify it in their mind. In their explanations to other people. Even if they admit later on that it wasn’t the right choice, deep down, they can tell the story in a way that convinces you it was a reasonable choice.”
“So what’s the alternative?” she asked, surprised by the prickliness in her own voice. “You want her to wear a scarlet letter? To don a hair shirt and spend the rest of her life hiding in a cave doing penance? People make mistakes, Adam. It happens all the time, and they can’t be expected to spend the rest of eternity being punished for it.”
Adam shook his head and took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t want to argue about this. I’m sorry. This is a tender subject for me, and yeah, I’ll admit it—it bothers me sometimes to know you’ve only heard Mia’s side of the story.”
“Is there a side you want me to hear?”
“No. I’m not interested in an endless game of he said, she said.” He shook his head again and took another step forward with the line. “I just want you to consider the possibility that things are more complicated than it might seem. It’s not a simple case of, ‘her husband neglected her, so she had an affair,’ nor is it a cut-and-dried instance of ‘his evil wife cheated and broke his heart.’ Both stories are completely true and completely false, and we can’t pick just one to believe.”
“Okay,” Jenna said, glancing up to see they’d almost reached the front of the line. Ellen was nowhere to be seen, which was a bigger relief than it should have been. Jenna took a few calming breaths and tried to steer the conversation onto slightly safer ground. “How did you know Mark’s ex-wife, anyway? Did you join a support group of thwarted exes or something like that?”
“Something like that,” Adam said, and took a step to the front of the line. “I slept with her.”
Chapter 9
Adam followed Jenna to their assigned lane, keeping a wary distance. Her shoulders were rigid and her pace was so brisk he practically had to jog to keep up.
When they reached the last lane on the end, she spun to face him with an expression that was all business. “Are you right-handed or left?”
“Right.”
“Is that comfortable in your hand?”
“Yes,” he answered, weighing the gun in his palm as he watched Jenna’s face for any sign of what she was really thinking. “Heavier than I expected, but yes.”
“You’ve got your ear protection?”
“Yes.”
Adam waited for the next question, pretty sure nothing she’d just asked him came close to what she really wanted to know. They’d marched through the business of flashing their IDs and choosing their weapons and finding their position, all without any further comment from Jenna about his history with Ellen.
They had ten more minutes until the range was hot—a term he’d learned just five minutes ago—but Jenna’s demeanor felt downright chilly. Tension buzzed from her body in waves, but she kept her focus on the box of ammo she was tearing open with more force than it probably required.
“Jenna?”
“Yeah?” She didn’t look up.
“Do you want me to explain? To tell you more about what happened between Ellen and me?”
She shrugged and looked up. “Is it any of my business?” Her tone was softer than her words, but Adam could see something flashing in her eyes.
“It seems like something’s bothering you, and it started right before we got our guns. Either you’re uncomfortable with what I told you about Ellen, or you’re more upset than I realized that all the Glocks were rented.”
Jenna sighed and closed her eyes, letting the box of ammo rest on the narrow counter beside her. When she opened her eyes, she looked conflicted. “It’s never going to be simple between us, is it?”
