Page 66 of First Date: Divorce
The corners of her mouth curved.“Truce?”
She extended her hand.
He met her hand.They shook.He didn’t release the clasp.
“Okay, we better get— Shh,” she ordered, even though she’d been the one talking.
Voices.
Too distant to make out words.But definitely coming closer.
She turned off her flashlight.
They stood still in the darkness.One male, one female voice.He thought the female one—
“Ms.Smiley,” K.D.murmured.
“Perfect nickname,” he said, barely above a breath.
“…I thought I caught a shadow in a counseling room.We have so many confidential papers, we can’t be too careful.”
“Somecouldbe more careful,” said the male voice.
“That’s all in the past now, Albert.I’m sure Melody is being more careful, and I know she deeply regrets any possible implications you were responsible.”
Interesting.
The male — likely a security guard — humphed.“Appreciate your speaking up for me, Miss.And don’t you worry about a thing tonight.I’ll be right here until five o’clock.”
Eric laid his hand on K.D.’s shoulder, then put his mouth close to her ear and said, “Trapped.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SATURDAY
Albert didn’t remain outside the closet door, but made rounds of some sort.Unfortunately, those rounds were neither long enough nor regular enough to be sure of avoiding him on the way back to their room.
They decided that after timing several of his returns.
When he did return, he settled for a while at a point down the hall that likely coincided with a couch there.
“He’s too close and he comes back too fast,” K.D.said softly in one of the interludes when Albert was on a round.
“Yeah.As I said, trapped.”
They found — moving with care — the cushion she’d spotted, and sat side by side on it, with their backs propped against the wall.
At one point, to the last discernible sound of Albert’s once again departing footsteps, Eric said, “So, that counseling’s interesting, huh?”
“In what way?”
“The questions.Makes you think about marriages.How they work.How they don’t.”
“I suppose.”Though she didn’t have the context he did.She knew how she felt about marriage.But he must have once believed in it … before experience taught him otherwise.
As if his thoughts followed the same path, he said, “I won’t ever get married again.Just like I won’t go looking for baskets of goodies left by the Easter Bunny.Some things you realize don’t work for you.Might work okay for other people, like friends and all your relatives — hell, you might see a lot of evidence that it works more than okay for other people—”
“Or evidence that it doesn’t.”
