She shook her head, undressed, slipped into a pair of black shorts. She brushed her teeth and crawled into bed, but not before grabbing Thomas and holding him in her arms. I glared at her the entire time. Thomas tried wrestling free and when she wouldn’t let go he hissed at her. My first thought—irrational or not—was that he smelled somebody else’s scent on her and, whether or not that was the case, I felt a rush of pride toward him. She let him go and he jumped off the bed.
“Are you going to keep staring at me like that?” she asked.
“I asked you a question.”
“Stratton, I’m tired and hung over. Can we please talk about this later?”
“Where were you?”
“Ugh,” she said and shook her head.
“Carolyn, I swear to god, if you cheated on me I’m going to explode.”
“I didn’t cheat on you!” she screamed, bolting upright. “I told you, I stayed at Holly’s. Now let me friggin’ sleep, okay? If you need me to account for every stupid minute of last night, then I will, just let me sleep first. I feel awful.”
“Right, Carolyn. Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through worrying about where in the hell you were?”
“Of course, it’s always about you, Stratton. Maybe if you stopped thinking about yourself all the time, you might actually trust me for once and wouldn’t have to worry so friggin’ much. Now leave me the hell alone and let me sleep.”
“Yeah, sure. Go ahead and sleep. Sleep away the whole goddamn day, for all I care.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Blow me,” I said.
“No thanks,” she replied in the same shitty tone as she had before.
I sat at the desk and bore into her with my eyes while yearning to flip over the entire bed with her still in it. Despite the fight, she seemed to fall asleep almost immediately, and even that—that she was able to sleep at a time I knew I’d never be able to—pissed me off.
I sat for twenty minutes, until I was certain she had in fact entered dreamland, and then I tiptoed across the apartment and sorted through the clothes she’d worn the night before, separating her panties from the pile. I held them a few inches from my face, scrutinizing them closely even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for. The white crusty residue that sometimes follows sex, or maybe a load of somebody else’s cum that had seeped out of her on the walk home? Whatever it was, it wasn’t there; I found nothing suspicious. Again, I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed.