“Simon…what exactly happened last night? I woke up in bed next to you…half dressed. And I can’t remember anything except that…” God, this was awful. “Except that, we kissed. I do remember that.” With her hands still covering her eyes, she forced herself to go on. “But I don’t remember much else, and if we…if we…” She dropped her hands from her face and hung her head. “Please tell me we didn’t.”

“Wait…you think, we…?”

“I don’t know what to think, Simon. All I know is that I remember kissing you in Clare’s office, and then, I’m waking up next to you in bed.” Eileen’s phone vibrated in her back pocket. She pulled it out to look at who was calling, and her already racing heart leapt into overdrive. “Shit, it’s Eric,” she said to herself.

“That asshole. You want me to talk to him?” Simon said.

Eileen looked at him like he was insane. “What? Why would I…and I thought…you and Eric liked each other.” She declined the call and saw that it was one of seven calls she had missed since last night.

“Wow, you really don’t remember anything from last night?” He pulled one full cup of coffee from the machine and replaced it with an empty one. “First off, no, and I kinda can’t believe I have to say this, we did not sleep together. Not like that.” He handed her a cup of coffee and pointed to the fridge. “Would you grab the cream?”

Nothing had happened. The relief of it swept away her embarrassment in an instant. She pulled open the fridge door and searched the shelves until she found the small carton of half-and-half on the inside of the door.

“To give you the short version, you showed me those last night.” He pointed to the pictures of Eric and Lauren, laid facedown on the island. “You told me about what was happening with Eric, how you found out about it, and what you planned to do about it. You cried, which made me cry, and also tell you about…my own affair.” Simon paused and reached for the cream, hesitating. “Which led to the whole discussion that sent me into a mental health nosedive and, along with also being incredibly drunk but apparently not quite as drunk as you, led me to telling you that I had been thinking about—”

“You asked me if I thought Clare had killed herself because of what you did,” she suddenly remembered. “Because you had cheated on her.”

Simon nodded.

“And you wanted to die too,” she whispered. “That’s what you said. I remember that now. You said you wanted to take Clare’s gun and shoot yourself.” Eileen’s forehead furrowed as she watched Simon take a drink from his coffee cup, then give her the barest of nods. “Simon…”