But the truth of the matter was, he was a magnetic force she couldn’t resist. As she unlocked the door, her bag slid from her shoulder, and she heard the rip of fabric. Shoot. She’d stuffed it too full, and now the strap was tearing at the seam. Tomorrow at school, she could staple it with the industrial stapler. Or maybe one of her students could do a creative duct-tape job on it. That was the hot new fad: duct tape. Her students had already gifted her with a wallet, a key chain, and too many bracelets to count. Today she was wearing one Chloe had made with sparkly pink tape.
Setting the cookies on the counter, she scrubbed her hands at the sink before lifting the foil and plucking one from the plate. She sank her teeth into it, and her eyes fell shut as the flavors teased her taste buds until they were wide-awake and begging for more. Embry worked magic in the kitchen, but the best Riki could do was plop premade dough onto a tray and end up with semiburned rocks. She shouldn’t have made the dumb joke about poisoned cookies. Of course Embry wouldn’t poison her. Embry wasn’t the terrible person in this scenario.
The sound of Sylvia’s TV buzzed from the apartment above hers. She couldn’t make out the words, but based on the canned laughter, she assumed it was some dumb sitcom from two decades ago. Or maybe it was Friends. Sylvia loved that show. She looked like she could be Monica’s sister, but Sylvia’s figure was softer than Monica’s thin frame. The dark hair and light eyes, though? Eerily similar.
Wiping the crumbs into the trash can, she washed her hands again and sank onto the sofa. She considered turning on her own TV but was too lazy to reach for the remote. Tonight had been draining. Guilt tried to settle in next to her on the sofa, but she shoved it to the floor. It wasn’t like she’d done anything bad. She’d only looked at the shirts hanging on Brandon’s side of the closet. She hadn’t even touched them with her hands, only her eyes.
Her heart sped up in her chest. Jeez, she was like her own lie-detector test. Even though she tried to block it from her memory, her brain was eager to replay the scene in flaming color. There she was, pressing her face into a stack of Brandon’s clean T-shirts, breathing them in and hoping for a trace of his scent. And then she’d rubbed his shorts against her wrists, transferring a touch of her perfume to them so when he took them from his drawer, he’d think of her. Guilt slithered from where she’d chucked it and began snaking up her leg, making her hands shake. What if they’d bought a nanny cam? She closed her eyes and tried to recall if anything new had been in their room, but her brain was like a freaking toddler skipping in circles and singing, Who took the cookie from the cookie jar? Riki took the cookie from the cookie jar!
Who me?
Yes you!
Not me!
We know it was you.
Oh, jeez. She needed to stop. This was getting out of hand. But in her defense, she wouldn’t have considered the perfume bit if he hadn’t told her she smelled nice the other day. When he made it big in Hollywood, he’d have to be a lot more careful about throwing compliments around like confetti. He’d end up with millions of women wishing they could be in bed next to him. They wouldn’t care that he was married to an adorable girl with bubblegum lips, voluptuous boobs, and dazzling hazel eyes. She even smelled good, like she bathed in rose petals.
Riki sat up, her senses alert. That was it! She had been at the mall last weekend and had wandered into a shop that sold soaps, scrubs, and candles fragranced with scents that had her dreaming of Paris gardens and tropical vacations. A pale-pink candle had caught her eye, and she’d held it to her nose. Her brain had staggered in circles, attempting to touch down on what person or memory the scent conjured.
Now she knew. It was Embry.
She leaped from the sofa and jogged to her room. Sure enough, when she sniffed the candle, Embry filled her senses. She snapped the lid onto it, trapping the scent, and left her room. It had to be a coincidence. That’s all. She wasn’t trying to copy Embry. Rose was one of the most common scents. Besides, it wasn’t weird for friends to end up trying one another’s perfume or lipstick shade. Girls shared stuff all the time. Even bathing suits, although Riki would never do that. Way too much potential for serious germs. But they don’t share husbands! Way too much potential for . . . Riki shook her head. For what? Poisoned cookies?
Shut up!
She needed a distraction. It was late for a weeknight, but what the hell? She grabbed her phone and began scrolling down her text messages until she landed on Chris.
Hey. You awake?
She stared at the screen, not sure if she really wanted to see the dots that meant he was replying or not. He’d only be a temporary fix, like eating fast food when you were starving but then wishing you’d waited to have something better.
Yeah. You wanna come over?
Can you come here instead?
And now he was DoorDash. She bit her lip.
Yep. Be there in ten.
Her finger hovered above the screen before she typed a reply. Three kissy-face emojis. It was the right response. Cute. Simple. And she wanted to kiss him. She really did. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t want to tug on his lips with her teeth as she trailed her fingers down his naked chest, snaking them to the button of his jeans, making him beg for her, the way she dreamed of doing with Brandon. She set her phone on the nightstand and went to brush her teeth. As she squeezed toothpaste onto her toothbrush, the pesky voice of reason seemed to pop out of the bathroom drawer.
You’re being stupid.
She slammed the drawer, but the voice refused to be quieted.
You’ll lead him on.
You’ll get hurt.
Well, so what? I’m allowed, she thought as she rinsed her mouth. She was only twenty-five, not forty.
Yet Embry was twenty-four. And married. And a mother times two.
Maybe this was a bad idea. She couldn’t imagine Embry hooking up with some guy for comfort sex.
But she wasn’t Embry.
And Chris wasn’t just some guy. They were dating.
She turned her head down to brush the underside of her straight hair before flipping it back. It had become a habit, but not a very effective one. Her hair looked puffy, not full and luxurious like in the shampoo commercials. Not like Embry’s. She ran the brush through it again, which got it right back to where she had started. Rowan, her older sister, had been blessed with a thick mass of chestnut curls, presumably from their maternal grandmother, though now Grandma Willet’s hair was cut short and kept in place with half a can of hair spray. When she was little, Rowan had told her that Grandma Willet was the reason for the hole in the ozone layer. For years, Riki had felt a residual guilt that someone in her family had caused such damage to the planet, and she’d always made sure to pick up trash at the park and turn off all the lights every time they left the house. It wasn’t until sixth grade, when her teacher taught an earth science unit, that she’d realized Rowan had been joking. How many other things had Rowan joked about that Riki had believed to be true? She looked at her reflection in the mirror. What would Rowan say about the thing with Chris? It’d be nice if they had the kind of relationship where they talked every day, eager to share even the most mundane details, but the truth was, they weren’t close. It didn’t help that Rowan was halfway across the world. She’d decided to travel all the way to Australia to get her master’s degree in sustainability, whatever that meant. She’d probably say, “Seriously, Riki? Either you like him or you don’t. Why the drama?”