Chapter 10 - Coffee Gone Cold at the Diner
The diner sat off the county highway past the fairgrounds, the kind of place with cracked vinyl booths and coffee that tasted like it had been on the burner since morning. I'd picked it because it wasn't anywhere Daniel would normally be seen. No coworkers, no valet, no chandeliers. Just a bell over the door and a waitress who called everyone hon.
I got there twenty minutes early. I slid into the back booth facing the parking lot so I could see his car pull in. My hands kept finding the paper napkin, folding and unfolding it. I hadn't slept much since the night Mara from payroll told me what Daniel had said about us being separated. The word sat in my chest like a stone.
He came in at twelve-fifteen. No tuxedo, no bow tie. Just dark jeans and a gray button-down with the sleeves pushed up, his hair still damp from a shower. He looked smaller without the ballroom around him. He spotted me and hesitated for half a second before walking over.
"You couldn't have picked somewhere closer?" he said, sliding in across from me.
"I needed somewhere quiet," I said.
The waitress poured coffee for both of us without asking. Daniel wrapped his hands around the mug but didn't drink.
He glanced toward the window. "So what is this about, Claire?"
I hated how normal his voice sounded. "I want to hear what happened Saturday. From you."
He sighed. "We already did this. At the apartment."
"No," I said. "You told me it was business. You didn't tell me you walked out with your arm around her."
His jaw tightened. "Vanessa needed a ride. Her driver bailed. I walked her to the car because photographers were still outside. That's it. You're turning a courtesy into something it wasn't."
I stared at him. The bell over the door rang as a trucker came in, stomping dust off his boots. The smell of bacon grease hung thick in the air.
"You paused at the doorway," I said. "You both turned and looked back at me. Do you remember that?"
He blinked. "I don't — I was checking if anyone followed us out. It was misunderstood, okay? It looked bad. I get that."
I pulled my phone from my purse and set it on the table between us, screen down. I didn't need it. I just needed something solid to look at besides his face.
"The seating chart was changed," I said. "My place card was moved off the head table. Vanessa was put next to you."
Daniel frowned. "That wasn't me. That was the events team. They move people around all the time."
"And you told someone we were separated."
The words landed. He went still.
"Who told you that?" he asked.
"Does it matter?"
"It matters because it's not true." His voice dropped. "I never used that word."
"You implied it," I said. "Mara heard it from Vanessa. Vanessa heard it from you."
He leaned back against the vinyl, the seat creaking under him. For a moment I saw the boy I'd married six years ago in a county courthouse, nervous and sweating through his shirt. Then it was gone.
"Look," he said, rubbing his face. "Vanessa's going through a divorce. She was upset that night. I was trying to keep her calm so she wouldn't make a scene at a company event. I might have said we were having a hard time. People say stuff like that to relate. It didn't mean anything."
I felt my throat close. "We were having a hard time? You left me standing on a marble floor in front of two hundred people."
"I didn't leave you," he said quickly. "I came home that night—"
"No, you didn't." My voice shook, but I kept it low. "Where did you stay, Daniel?"
Silence. The waitress refilled a cup two booths down. Silverware clinked. My coffee had gone cold, a thin skin forming on top.
He reached for his wallet. "I stayed at the Marriott by the airport. I told you I needed space. I wasn't thinking straight."
"Which room? Who booked it?"
"Jesus, Claire." He pulled out two twenties and dropped them on the table. "This feels like an interrogation."
"It's a question. If you were alone, you can tell me."
He stood up, the napkin dispenser rattling as his hip hit the table edge. He wouldn't look at me now. He looked at the parking lot, at his car, anywhere else.
"I gave you a ride story, I explained the seating thing, I told you where I stayed. What else do you want from me?"
"The truth," I said. "Just once."
He picked up his keys. His knuckles were white around them. "I have to get back to work."
May you like
He walked out before the bell finished ringing. Through the window I watched him cross the cracked asphalt to his SUV, get in, sit for a long minute with his hands on the wheel without starting it, then pull out onto the highway toward town.
I stayed in the booth. The two twenties lay next to my untouched coffee. I didn't touch them. I just sat there listening to the hum of the drink cooler and thinking about how he hadn't denied staying somewhere else. He'd confirmed it without meaning to — just not the part that mattered.
