Little Secrets (ARC)

by Jennifer Hillier

  He’s wavering. She can see it. She places a hand on his inner thigh, stroking the bulge there with her forefinger. She can feel it.

  “You have to promise not to hate me tomorrow.” Sal’s voice is hoarse. “Because I couldn’t live with it if you did.”

  “I could never hate you, no matter what,” she says. “Don’t you know that by now? You’re the only person I have left in the world who I trust, Sal.”

  To anyone else, it would have been just words. But it’s the exact thing Sal had said to her the night his father died. He was a mess, screaming, hysterical, near incoherent, and it had taken him a long time to calm down. Marin did most of the talking when the cops showed up. She’s the reason he was never arrested. You’re the only person I have left in the world who I trust, Marin.

  This moment is probably the closest they’ll ever come to speaking of that night, and it wasn’t even intentional.

  He reaches for her and undresses her slowly, his eyes feasting on a naked body he last saw on a twin bed in his college apartment. Then he undresses himself, and the sight of his body is comforting to her, largely unchanged since the last time she saw him this way, other than maybe a bit more body hair and a lot more muscle.

  He’s not a college kid anymore. And neither is she.

  They find each other again, tangling in the sheets, until a moment later when he pulls back and asks, chest heaving, “Do you have anything?”

  It takes her a few seconds to understand what he’s asking. It’s been so long since anybody’s asked her that question. She hasn’t used any kind of birth control since she was probably in her late twenties, when she and Derek started actively trying for a baby.

  “No, I don’t.” She pulls him back to her. “It’s fine.”

  It took four rounds of IVF and a hundred thousand dollars to have Sebastian. She’s not worried about what might happen today. All she knows is she needs this, more than she’s needed anything or anyone in a long time.

  Sal enters her slowly, his gaze fixed on hers, and it feels so good to be filled up, to not be empty anymore. She loses herself in him, and it’s better than she remembers. They’re both better than she remembers. Tender at the start, animalistic near the end, and exactly what she needs.

  He’s pulling his pants back up as she’s falling asleep in the messy bedsheets. It’s getting dark outside now. He leans over and kisses her lips, and it’s long and lingering, filled with unspoken words and a desire for her that she now understands never really waned but was only suppressed. She kisses him back, all the while knowing that this will be the last time they’ll ever kiss like this. When they broke up all those years ago, they didn’t know that their last kiss was the last one.

  But today, Marin knows. This can’t happen again.

  “I love you,” he whispers.

  She smiles at him in the dim light and strokes his face. “I love you.”

  They’re the exact same words, but they mean totally different things.

  An hour later, when she’s woken up by the soft ping of her phone, the bedroom is dark. It’s not the Shadow app. It’s her regular iMessage. Derek has finally bothered to check in, and Marin props herself up on her elbow to read his text.

  Hey, I’m delayed in PDX another night, invited to dinner with the investors. Wish I could say no. I’ll be home tomorrow night instead.

  Lies. Lies lies lies. He’s not in Portland. He probably just got to the hotel here in Seattle, whichever one is their “favorite.”

  No worries, she responds. This is why they pay you the big bucks.

  I’ll be home in time for dinner tomorrow, promise, Derek texts. Make a reservation anywhere you want to eat. I’ll surprise you with something nice F04A.

  The stupid thing is, he really will. His last trip to Portland, he came back with a pair of knee-high Valentino boots for her. It wasn’t her birthday. It wasn’t Christmas. He’d spied them in the window at Nordstrom and bought them for her “just because.” What would it be this time? How much will he spend to alleviate his guilt?

  Assuming he feels any guilt at all. He’s not like Marin, where guilt is her default setting, coloring everything she thinks, and feels, and does. She feels the rage coming back, seeping through her pores. She welcomes it. Rage cuts through all the bullshit and confusion. Rage untangles her, making everything clear.

  She reaches for her phone, calls Sal. When he answers, it takes a second for the Bluetooth to connect, which is how she knows he’s in the car.

  “Hey,” she says. “You on the road?”

  “I am. What’s up?” he says, and in those four short words, it already feels different between them. It’s like he’s bracing himself for what she’s going to say about what they did, but she can’t get into that yet.

  “I want to meet your guy,” she says. “Assuming you were serious.”

  His response is almost immediate, and it’s not, Mar, I was kidding, as she’s half-expecting. Instead it’s “No need. I can talk to him for you.”

  “No.” She walks to the bedroom window and looks outside. The sun has set, and the trees are just shadows in the backyard. “I need to meet him face-to-face. I’m not doing this if I can’t meet him in person. It’s not right.”

  Silence. She knows he heard her because she can still tell he’s on speaker phone.

  “Okay, I’ll set it up,” he finally says. “I’m planning to drive back around six tomorrow night, so I should be back a little after nine. I’ll arrange for him to meet us—”

  “Not us, me. I need to do this by myself, Sal. As soon as possible, before I lose my nerve.”

  She hears what she just said to him, and it occurs to her then that maybe she should wait until tomorrow. Maybe the possibility of losing her nerve is a good thing, because what she’s considering doing is absolutely over-the-top insane.

  Seconds pass, with Sal not saying anything. She knows he’s there. She can hear the whirring of the car in motion, like soft white noise, and the slight echo of the Bluetooth connection. She wonders if he’s regretting opening this door, leading her down this path. Sal’s always been a little outside the box, antiauthoritarian, a bit of an outlaw, while Marin’s been straight as an arrow.

  “I’ll get back to you,” he says, and after a brief goodbye, full of words unspoken, they disconnect.

  An hour later, he sends a text. Midnight tonight. Frankenstein. Sober up.

  Chapter 10

  McKenzie Li’s credit card isn’t working. Again. Embarrassed, she glances over her shoulder. Derek is seated in a booth, catching up on emails on his iPhone, and he doesn’t sense her looking. He never senses her looking. They’re not in sync that way.

  “Try it again.” Kenzie turns back to the counter, working hard to keep the urgency out of her voice. It was her idea to come here, to let him know that she’s not high-maintenance. She wanted to remind him what it is about her that he was attracted to in the first place. However, she can’t bring herself to go back to the table without their food. She can’t tell him she doesn’t have any money. Usually when she goes to order, he hands her some cash before she can think about it. But he’s distracted tonight, and she can never bring herself to ask. He has to offer.

  The McDonald’s cashier, who can’t be more than fifteen, gives her a dubious look under his visor. He runs her Visa again, and once again the screen reads Transaction Not Approved. “Sorry, ma’am. Declined. Do you have another one I can try?”

  First of all, he can shove it up his ass that she’s a ma’am. She’s only twenty-four, for fuck’s sake. Second, no, she does not. All her other credit cards are maxed out, and this is the second of the two she thought might work, the one with the low limit and high interest rate that she applied for only a month ago. She can’t have used it that much, but maybe she has. She’d probably have a better idea if she’d bothered to open the first statement, which is still sitting on the kitchen counter on top of all the other bills she hasn’t opened yet.

  The lady behind
her with the two hyperactive grandkids sighs with impatience, tapping one foot on the tiled floor as she snaps at them to stay still or you’re going back to your father’s. This might be less mortifying if the McDonald’s they were in was busier, had more noise, more cashiers, more customers. Kenzie is hyperaware of the annoyed judgment of the high school kid taking her order, who probably has more money in his pocket than she does in her bank account right now.

  Derek once said to her that growing up poor made him who he is. How great for him. Being poor sucks for her, and she knows that pursuing a master’s degree in fine arts isn’t exactly going to change that prospect once she graduates. Sure, she’d like to be the kind of person who doesn’t care about money, like so many of her artist friends. But when you’re drowning in student loans and credit card debt, and your mother has early-onset Alzheimer’s and is in a care facility that isn’t even the most expensive but is still really fucking expensive, money is the difference between McDonald’s and dollar-store instant ramen. Because yes, there are levels lower than fast food.

  She fishes through her wallet, hoping that the extra twenty-dollar bill she keeps for emergencies is still stashed in the slot where she hides it. She can’t remember if she used it or not. She doesn’t know if a credit card being declined in a McDonald’s qualifies as an official emergency, but this sure as shit feels like it. Her grandmother always taught her to keep a bit of cash in her purse, because sometimes credit cards don’t work, and sometimes there’s no ATM nearby. Grand-mére had been right, and Kenzie suddenly misses her, making it hard to take a deep breath.

  Oh grief, you sly bastard.

  She finds the twenty, folded between an old Sears card and her Sephora VIB card, neither of which she uses anymore because the first one went out of business and the second one she can’t afford. The McDonald’s order is $14.68. She contemplates changing her grilled chicken combo to two hamburgers from the Dollar Menu. But the lady behind her sighs again, and Kenzie is forced to accept that she’s too embarrassed to say anything. She unfolds the twenty and hands it to the cashier. He hands her back a five and some coins. She stuffs the change into her wallet and tries not to think about the fact that this is all the money she has left for the week.

  Derek doesn’t look up when she returns with their food; he’s consumed with his phone. He’s consumed with his phone for work the way she’s consumed with her phone for everything nonwork, and he doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s typing, so she doesn’t say anything. Before she sits down, she tries to peek at what he’s looking at. But this, of course, he senses, and he tilts his phone away so Kenzie can’t see the screen.

  She hates when he does that. It reminds her that he has secrets. She should know. She’s one of them.

  She unwraps her grilled chicken burger and takes a bite, keeping herself occupied with Instagram while he continues to act like she’s not here. She posted a pic while they were driving to the hotel with her feet up on the dashboard, managed to snap it right before he told her not to put her feet up on the dashboard. Even though she’d taken her shoes off, she knew it would annoy him. She knows him better than he gives her credit for. And he’d probably hate it if he knew that he sometimes shows up on her Instagram, even though there’s no actual name or face or any identifying characteristics. But what does it matter if he’s not on social and never sees it, anyway?

  Absently, he reaches for a fry. He doesn’t say thank you for the food, and while he doesn’t need to—God knows he’ll pay for everything else—Derek dropping a hundred bucks on dinner is nothing. Kenzie spending almost fifteen dollars on McDonald’s has wiped her out until payday. Besides, she can’t remember the last time he made a point to be polite to her. She remembers thinking when they first met that he had the best manners. He was such a gentleman.

  He’s not that guy anymore. Six months of lying and sneaking around has changed him. But she can’t get too upset about it, because it’s changed her, too. Kenzie used to be in control, but now it feels like he’s slipping away. Going to a hotel tonight might have been his idea, but she’s not stupid. There’s a big difference between a man who genuinely wants to be with her, and a man who just doesn’t want to go home.

  “Everything okay?” she asks when he puts down his phone.

  “All good.” But he’s not smiling, and Kenzie doesn’t know if it’s because of his phone, or because of her. She won’t ask; they don’t do that. They don’t check in on each other emotionally. They don’t go deep. That’s never been part of their MO, even though she’s tried. Instead, he looks at the food in front of him and frowns. He opens the box for his burger, and his scowl deepens. “I said Quarter Pounder.”

  “You said Big Mac.” She knows he said Big Mac. She knows he said Big Mac because she remembers that when he said it, she thought to herself, But you normally get a Quarter Pounder. She is confident in her correctness, and she can see from the shifting look in his eyes that he’s wondering if that is actually what he said. But Derek hates to be wrong, and he’s the king of doubling down, and so he’s going to deny he said Big Mac until it ruins their night together.

  “When have I ever eaten a Big Mac?” he says, but his conviction is wavering. He’s staring at Kenzie like she’s supposed to know the answer. She gets that he’s tired from driving back from Portland all afternoon, but she offered to drive to the hotel when he picked her up, and he insisted he was fine. What they both know is that he doesn’t want her driving his precious Maserati. If he won’t let her put her (clean) socked feet up on his dashboard, he’s sure as shit not going to let her behind the wheel of his obnoxiously expensive sports car. Derek thinks the Maserati excites her, and it did at first. But it also makes him look like a douche.

  And guess what? He’s not the only one who’s tired. She was on her feet all morning serving customers at the Green Bean until Marin Machado walked in, looking like she wanted to rip Kenzie’s throat open with her perfect teeth, all the while still managing to look classy and completely fabulous.

  Kenzie knows who Derek’s wife is. Of course she does.

  It had taken everything in her not to react, to pretend her lover’s wife was just another customer, and she credits her performance to the drama elective she took during undergrad in Idaho. If there were an award for Best Coffee Shop Actress, Kenzie would have won it. It was excruciating wondering if Marin was going to reach over the counter and strangle her, or start screaming obscenities and threats in front of her coworkers and a shop packed with customers. Kenzie even approached her later with a coffee refill to give her the chance to do just that—figuring they could get it over with, and at least she’d be somewhat prepared—but Marin had said nothing. She’d simply sat in the corner and watched her work, staring at Kenzie like she was a bug she wanted to squash under her Jimmy Choos.

  Kenzie’s seen Marin in photos. They’re all over the web, in magazines, on charity event pages, in beauty articles, and Derek’s wife keeps active Facebook and Instagram pages for both work and her personal life. But Marin Machado, in person, is on a whole different level. For one, she looks like Salma Hayek (whose hair she’s worked on before, according to InStyle). She has bedroom eyes, all tits and ass and a tiny waist, designer clothes clinging to her in all the right spots. When Marin stood facing her at the counter, Kenzie felt gangly and awkward, like a tween who hasn’t filled out yet, too tall and too skinny, and in desperate need of a makeover. Marin Machado is soft and full where Kenzie is angles and flat, and they could not be more physically different if they tried.

  It’s why she sent Derek the nude selfie. She needed reassurance.

  Marin Machado is smart. Successful. She runs her own business with those three salons and her team of women who all seem to adore her. She’s self-made and she gives back to the community and her hashtags are always #girlboss and #womanowned and #empowerwomen and she’s pretty much everything Kenzie would want to be when she grows up.

  She can’t imagine what the woman’s deal is. Ma
rin obviously knows who Kenzie is. But there was no confrontation, and she clearly hasn’t said anything to Derek, because if she had, no way would Kenzie be here with him right now.

  Derek still isn’t speaking, so she continues to think about Marin as she eats her French fries. Seeing his wife in person explains a lot. Everybody looks good in their Instagram photos, thanks to filters and Facetune. Seeing someone in real life, however, is different. Derek must think Kenzie is a hot mess most of the time, compared to his put-together wife. She’d rushed home after work to take a quick shower, and Derek had grimaced when he saw her.

  “It can’t take that long to dry your hair,” he said.

  “I air-dry most days.”

  He reached into the back seat for his gym bag, rifling through it until he found a microfiber towel. “Lean forward,” he said, and when she did, he draped it over the leather seat.

  “My hair is cleaner than your towel,” she said.

  “My seats are worth more than your hair.”

  She had no response for that. She’s betting a woman like Marin would never leave the house with wet hair, or with anything less than five cosmetic products on her face.

  Derek doesn’t even come upstairs to the apartment when he picks her up. If she’s not at the curb when he arrives, he texts. He doesn’t even get out of the goddamned car to use the buzzer in the lobby. He once snapped, “I’m not a goddamned Uber driver,” which tells her that he’s never taken an Uber. Those guys don’t get out of the car, either.

  They then sat beside each other in his uncomfortable, flashy car for a half hour until Kenzie suggested stopping for McDonald’s. As bougie as Derek can be, he grew up on fast food like she did, and she knows he never minds a mass-produced burger and fries. Also, he was in a terrible mood, and she thought the food might chill him out a bit. Instead, it’s having the opposite effect, since all they’re doing is sitting here in this sticky booth while he complains about the burger she bought him with her emergency money.