The Other Other Woman (22 page)

I was starving by the time the food arrived, so we all started chowing down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matt finally grab his phone. I gave Brooke a little kick. We both watched him as he suddenly jumped back like he had just heard a gunshot. I tried to stifle my laughter but oh my gosh, it was so funny watching his eyes bug out of his head like that. He typed back:
What???

Under the table, I responded:
Yup. She told me when you left.

He was noticeably freaked out. He still was talkative and friendly as we continued to eat and make conversation, but I could tell he was flustered. The color was all but gone from his face. Brooke said she wanted to get going so she could see her kids before going out and Molly had to get to her parents’ house for dinner. We said goodbye to them and I told Brooke I would text her to see where I needed to be later.

I gently reached for Matt’s arm as he paid the check and said, “You okay, baby?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just surprised she figured it out like that. I thought we were pretty careful.”

“Well, apparently you told her that I was gorgeous and smart last week, hmm?” I teased.

He just smiled and rubbed my leg again.

“Listen. I’m telling you. You do NOT have to worry about her. She would never say anything. She’s happy about it!”

“No, I know. I know I can trust her. It just caught me off guard.”

“I wish you had seen how she did it, I thought I was going to die,” I said. I proceeded to tell him all about the “ARE YOU GUILTY, BITCH?!” He did laugh and seem to perk up a little bit.

“Babe, I gotta head home. You ready?”

“Sure.”

Walking back to the deck, he was definitely more distant than when we had first arrived. He didn’t stand nearly as close to me. Even his pace seemed nervous and hurried. I was worried now that I had greatly underestimated just how upset he was. He walked me to my car and hugged me tightly before I got in. He must have needed it; the tension coming off of him was palpable. He crouched down next to my open window.

“Be careful tonight, please. Don’t drink and drive. If you guys get into trouble, call me and I’ll come get you, okay?”

“Okay, Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I’m serious, Mal. I don’t want you getting hurt. I’ll give you a call in the morning to see when I can come over to see you off, okay?”

“Sure. Hey, thanks for picking up the food and drinks tonight, babe. I really appreciate it,” I said, shooting him a sideways glance. “And the Doritos…”

He barely smiled as he replied, “It was my pleasure, sweetie.”

I palmed his cheek, “Matt, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“You don’t seem fine. Trust me; it’s not going to go anywhere. She would never do that to me or to you. Girls have a code, you know?”

“I know,” he nodded. “Have fun tonight, but be careful.” He quickly scanned the parking lot to make sure no one was there, and leaned in through my window to give me a kiss goodnight.

“Wish you could come,” I said.

“Me too. Night, sweetie. See you tomorrow…”

I watched him get in his car and I headed back to my hotel. I changed my clothes, yet again, into an outfit a little more suitable for dinner and possible dancing. I wasn’t exactly sure what we had in mind. Brooke texted me and told me to stay put at the hotel. Travis had graciously offered to pick us all up and drive us to Buckhead so we could just share a cab to get back home. That was going to work out perfectly because now we wouldn’t have to worry about parking or drinking too much.

I was the last one to be picked up and, as I got in the car, I said hello to everyone. It was the first time I had ever actually met Travis. He nodded at me but didn’t speak. That was progress. The other two ladies seemed nice enough, but they were already engrossed in a conversation before I got in.

We arrived at the restaurant shortly before eight p.m. Brooke mentioned Matt’s name to the manager and they looked at her like she had three heads, which we all found quite amusing. Obviously Matt thought he had more clout there than he actually did. We each had a couple of rounds of cocktails, and were getting ready to eat our dinner when I got a text. I didn’t want to be rude at the table, so I tried to ignore it for about a half hour, but I was still worried about him. I was so relieved when I finally saw his message.

My legs are tired!!!

Sorry babe! Hope it was worth it!

SO worth it!!!!

You in bed already?

Not yet! I’m not THAT old! You dancing?

Not yet. Having cocktails and eating dinner. Dancing will be much later, but I’ll make it happen!

Sounds good, take pictures!

Okay, night babe, IMU!

Miss you, be careful!

My mood just improved considerably. Brooke shot me a “What the hell are you smiling at, hooker?” look. We still hadn’t had five minutes together to discuss the details of what had happened earlier. After dinner it was still a little early to go looking for a club, but the bar at the restaurant was really cool. We decided to hang out there for a while. Surprisingly, Molly had texted Brooke that she was going to come out and meet us, so I was excited about that. It would be interesting to see what she was like out on the town.

Brooke’s friends were perfectly pleasant ladies, but they were starting to act tired. They were nursing their drinks and not adding to the conversation at all. It was barely even 9:30 on a Friday night. So Brooke and I took the opportunity to throw back some lemon drop shots and talk about what a whore I had been for the last few months. I tried to condense everything for her, just to give her a brief overview of how my relationship with Matt began. I didn’t want to overwhelm her with details and mostly, I didn’t want to betray his confidence in me by telling her anything too personal.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I couldn’t tell you! I wanted to! Believe me, it was killing me! But he obviously doesn’t want anyone knowing he’s cheating on his wife.”

“I know, but it’s not like I didn’t know about him being miserable. We’ve talked about that before, he could have trusted me with that.”

“I know that, and I think he probably knows that too. But why even risk it, you know? Girl, he was so upset. Did you see him jump when I sent him that text? I thought he was going to stroke out.”

“Yeah, that was some funny shit,” she agreed.

“I know. I felt bad laughing at him, though.”

“You know, you both looked like you had been fucking all afternoon. Especially you. I knew it the second I walked in,” she added.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. We played Tiddlywinks the whole time,” I winked, taking another shot. “So what’s up with your girlfriends over there? Do they just not like having fun?”

“I don’t know, but they are getting on my damn nerves. Next time? It’s just you and me.”

Molly soon met up with us, and we went into a dance club called Tongue and Groove since it was within a very short distance of Aja's. We noticed right away that there were stripper poles scattered about the club with small lines of women waiting to climb on them. There were two lovely ladies dancing on small stages in tiny thong underwear and large furry boots. Brooke and I were both like, “This is awesome!” and just taking in the music and the overall scene. But, of course, her friends were not impressed at all and appeared very uncomfortable.

Molly suggested that we head to the Havana Club instead, since the other girls seemed so out of their element. Brooke’s friends couldn’t wait to get out of Tongue and Groove, so we all agreed we would give it a shot. That place was absolutely packed, just wall to wall people. We literally had to fondle strangers just to squeeze by them to get over to the bar. It didn’t bother me, but I laughed to myself thinking how miserable Brooke’s friends were going to be about this. And I was right. Brooke, Molly, and I went to dance with some very cute boys who looked to be in their twenties. I had no idea where her friends went. Brooke danced with us for a good 20 minutes or so and then left to go get a drink. At least another half hour passed by with no sign of Brooke or her friends.

I asked Molly to help me look for her, and we found her on the staircase, talking to the other girls and looking very disappointed. She excused herself for a moment to come tell me she was leaving because they wanted to go home.

“Are you kidding me, it’s only like 10:30?!”

“I know, but they want to go, and we were going to share a cab home.”

“This is supposed to be us celebrating your birthday. That’s ridiculous.”

“I know. Next time, it’s just you and me!”

“Okay, how about this, tell them that they can share a cab home. You stay here with us, and we’ll take a cab later with Molly.”

“But I don’t want to leave anyone in a cab alone in this town.”

“So, we’ll go back to my hotel and then I’ll drive you home. I’ll stop drinking now, I feel pretty good anyway, but I should be totally fine by then.”

“Okay, cool, that’ll work.”

We danced for a couple more hours. We found Molly to be a blast, definitely not the super shy girl we thought she was. We took a cab back from Havana and I was able to get Brooke home in one piece. I did get lost on the way back to my hotel from her house, but I was in bed by about 3:30 a.m.

Matt called me the next morning after his workout and said he was coming over for a few minutes. I was mostly packed up and ready to check out. I knew there wouldn’t be any funny business since we only had about a half hour. I was a little bummed about that, but I was glad that he was making an effort to see me at all. When he came in, he kissed me immediately–almost apologetically–saying he was sorry he could only stay a few minutes because he had to go… somewhere with his… son. The way he trailed off made my stomach drop. I instantly tensed up. I wasn’t about to question him, I knew better now. But there was just something about the way he said it. I knew he was full of it. Maybe he just didn’t want me to know he had to go get groceries with the wife, I don’t know.

He interrupted my thought process by grabbing my face tenderly with his hands and pulling me into his chest for one of those long, romantic kisses that brought me to my knees every time. He was a very hands-on kisser–always running his fingers through my hair, or touching my face, or slipping his hands under my ears and cradling my neck toward his mouth. It was nearly incapacitating, and I couldn’t get enough of it. As I grabbed his hand and led him over to the bed, he stopped and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Don’t worry, I know you only have a few minutes. I promise not to molest you,” I said, rolling my eyes. He smiled as I pulled him on to the bed with me. He looked so handsome. All fresh and clean from his post-workout shower, in just a light lavender T-shirt and black cargo shorts. It was a nice change, seeing him really casual instead of in a sport coat. He sure did like him some purple.

He clasped my hand in his and kissed the back of it, holding it while we spoke. He was leaning on one arm, using his other hand to gently push my hair behind my ear as we kissed very lightly and sweetly, stopping every few seconds or so for him to ask me about the previous night. He let go of my hand and stroked my face, kissing me mid-sentence several times, which made me completely lose track of my thoughts. He seemed completely focused on me, and I felt like maybe his feelings for me had changed too. I had never seen him be so attentive, looking at me with such adoration, that I found it both exhilarating and confusing at the same time. Maybe this really was what he wanted.

I was quickly brought back down to earth, however, by the alarming sound of his phone going off like crazy. He tried to ignore the texts at first and didn’t read them in front of me. But it was obvious he had to get going. I needed to check out anyway, and I was supposed to meet Brooke for lunch. I still wasn’t very good at saying goodbye to him. He slid his entire body on top of me to give me another incredibly slow, deep kiss, but it was overwhelmingly sad for me. I never knew where we stood, and I was too chicken to ask him. Everything was so magical and so perfect when we were together, like I was the most important woman in the world to him. And it just seemed to rot and decay once we were apart.

After he kissed me, I got up and went into the bathroom, fidgeting nervously with my travel-sized containers still left on the counter.

“Aren’t you even going to walk me to the door?” he said, kind of surprised.

“Oh, yeah, sorry…”

His phone was still going off and he checked it quickly, looking up at me like he was ashamed and said, “Just Twitter feeds.”

Sure they were.

He hugged and kissed me on his way out the door. As soon as he was gone, I knew I had to act fast. I wasn’t leaving town without checking on one tiny little detail. I called Brooke and told her that I needed to skip lunch because my mom called and Ruby had thrown up. That was actually true, but my mom didn’t tell me I had to rush home. Then I threw my bags in the car and called Jules from the parking lot. “Okay, so I need you to help me play detective,” I said.

“Oooh are we stalking!? Just like old times!”

“I need you to look up an address for me, for Katya…”

“How do you spell Wonderbread Queen’s last name again?” she replied eagerly.

“B-A-T-S-E-V-I-C-H, if there is nothing on White pages, check Spokeo…”

“Okay, I got it, 6910 Sunrise Ct. Atlanta, GA”

“Got it. I’m mapping it now.”

“You think he’s over there?”

“I sure do.”

“What happened? Wasn’t he coming over to say goodbye?”

“Oh, he did. It was great, actually. But I just can’t shake this feeling. I need to know if he was going over there right after putting his tongue down my throat. Oh God…” I added, my stomach lurching.

“What?”

“I just realized that’s where his gym is. Sunrise. I knew that sounded familiar. How much you want to bet he owns the condo where she lives? I know he owns one in Atlanta, he told me. She probably gets free rent in exchange for sexual favors.”