Page 55 of About that Fling
“Couldn’t you say that about any relationship?”
“Sure, any relationship where one partner has bumped uglies with half the people the other person knows.”
“You’re giving me more credit than I deserve for sexual prowess. For the record, it was two times and it was almost three years ago.”
She sighed and set the box of ammo down on the counter. They had some measure of privacy here in the little lane that separated them from the other shooters, but it was still a public place. He could hear gunfire in the distance from the outdoor rifle range, but things were eerily quiet in the space around them.
“It’s fine, Adam. We both have a history. I’m just not used to the men I date having this much history with the women I know. I’m okay. It’s really none of my business, is it?”
He could tell she wanted to ask more, but something held her back. Pride? Embarrassment? Uncertainty about whether she really wanted to open this can of worms?
Adam went ahead and opened it for her. “I was pretty devastated when I found out my wife was sleeping with someone else. At first I tried to fix it. I asked her to give me three months of intensive marriage counseling to see if we could repair the marriage.”
Jenna glanced away, fingering one of the pistols. She’d chosen two different guns for them, suggesting they could trade back and forth to give him a feel for firing both a .32 and a .22. He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but he’d nodded anyway.
She picked up the one the clerk had called a Kel-Tec, turning it over in her hand without comment. “Did Mia agree? To the counseling, I mean.”
“Yeah.” He let out a long, ragged breath. “I pulled some strings and got us an in-person session with Dr. Vivienne Brandt.”
“The famous shrink? The one with the books you keep quoting?”
“That’s her.” He still couldn’t believe Dr. Viv had replied to his email. “She doesn’t normally take on clients like that, but I talked a good game as a lawyer. Anyway, we flew all the way to Seattle to meet with her the first time. Then we did telehealth sessions for a couple more weeks.”
“Only two weeks?”
“That’s how it goes sometimes.” He hated the memories searing through him like shockwaves. “Marriage counseling is usually about saying hello or saying goodbye. For us, there was no hope of starting over. No chance of hello. So after a couple weeks, we threw in the towel and said goodbye.”
He watched her throat move as she swallowed. A blast of gunfire sounded somewhere outside, but she didn’t jump. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine now, but I was in a pretty dark place then. That’s where I was when Ellen found me.”
“She reached out to you?”
Adam nodded and set his own weapon on the counter beside the box of ammo. It wasn’t loaded, but the damn thing still gave him the willies. Even so, he felt ridiculous holding it in the midst of a conversation like this.
“After Mark told her their reconciliation wasn’t going to work, Ellen wanted to know why. After he told her about Mia, Ellen tracked her down. Said she wanted to meet ‘the other woman.’ Eventually, that led Ellen to me.”
Jenna kept fiddling with a button that moved the target, making the paper outline of a head and shoulders zoom back and forth absurdly. She didn’t seem to realize she was doing it, so Adam said nothing.
“So you met Ellen.”
He nodded and watched the paper man bob back and forth, the head and shoulders waving like a bizarre white flag. “She thought we could support each other, maybe work together to bring our spouses back.”
Jenna met his eyes again. “And you thought having sex with each other might do that?”
He choked back a laugh. “No. Not at first. But when we realized our efforts were futile, we turned to each other for comfort. I knew it was stupid even before I did it. But people don’t always make the smartest decisions when they’re grieving.”
She snorted. “Tell me about it.”
Something in her tone told him there was a story there, but now didn’t seem like the time to push. “You can relate?”
“Who can’t?” She picked up the box of ammo and began loading bullets into the clip, a gesture Adam took as an end to that line of questioning. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said. “This is fascinating, in a way. I mean, I’ve heard of this before. Of the spouses who get cheated on finding their way into each other’s beds and arms. Isn’t it some sort of psychological phenomenon or something?”
“I don’t think there’s an actual syndrome, if that’s what you mean. I think there was a country singer who married her best friend’s ex after the friend stole her husband.”
“Shania Twain, right—I read about that.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “Are gun fanatics required to be country music fans?”
