Chapter 3
She looked at the mirror. "Jimmy. You're reading too much into this."
I did not argue. I noted, and I waited.
The next day while she was at the grocery store I opened my laptop and found the resort's social media page. Sunsets, cocktails, smiling tourists. Then the video appeared. A beach party. Bonfire. Music. And Mia, laughing with her head tipped back and a drink in one hand and Brady's arm around her shoulder in the easy way of a man who has decided he has earned the right to touch something. He was shirtless and close and looking down at her with a look I knew exactly how to read.
I paused the frame.
Her hand was flat against his chest.
That night after dinner she sat on the couch pretending to watch television while the blue light moved across her face. I set my beer down hard enough that she looked up.
"We need to talk."
"About what?"
"Brady."
Her smile died so fast it left a vacancy.
She tried the story she had been preparing since the airport. Snorkeling. A party everyone went to. Dancing. Nothing happened. I let her build it sentence by sentence, let her find the architecture of it, and then I leaned forward and I said: "I saw the video."
Mia went pale.
I said: "You slept with him."
"No," she whispered.
Her eyes found the floor.
I stood up slowly. "Pack your things."
She stared at me as though the sentence had come from somewhere outside the room. "Jimmy. Please. Don't do this."
"Pack. Your. Things."
May you like
Fifteen minutes later she was at the door with mascara along her cheekbones and her fingers wrapped around the handle of the same suitcase she had taken to paradise. "It didn't mean anything," she said. Her voice broke on the last word.
I opened the door.
