“That’s such a stupid name,” Nicki said, pounding her fist lightly against her stomach. She didn’t try to hide the jealousy in her voice. She didn’t care enough to hide anything from Dallas, maybe that was the appealing part about being with him. “I can’t believe you dated someone with such a stupid name.”

“Actually, we were married. For six months. We just got divorced last year.”

Nicki let her hand drop against her stomach. “Awesome,” she said. She sat up abruptly and started searching for her shirt.

“What?” said Dallas, watching curiously as she stumbled around the room, kicking takeout boxes away, throwing aside old crusty boxer shorts.

“You prick. What the fuck is wrong with you?” Her pulse sped up, and her vision blurred with a flood of rage. The worst part was, she knew she had no reason to be angry, which made her even angrier, to the point where she could barely see.

Her shirt was nowhere to be found. She grabbed her coat and zipped it up over her bra, smoothed down her hair, and gave Dallas the double-middle-finger salute before slamming the door behind her.

Fucking married. Who did he think he was?

But she was the one who texted him the next weekend, and the time after that, and the time after that. She still doesn’t like Dallas, but for some Christ-forsaken reason she really, really loves fucking him. She loves the sneaking around, lying to people, feeling disgusting ninety percent of the time. She loves that he’s the last person on the planet that she should want to fuck. She loves that they can do it and then be dicks to each other, that they can bite and kick and scratch and then share a beer and go back to their lives. She loves that if Hamish ever found out, he would be devastated – loves that she can dangle his fragile heart over the gaping chasm of her betrayal and swing it there. She needs this, this knife’s edge. She needs it to feel alive. And she won’t apologize for it.

So they end up in dirty motels like this one, with her clients thinking she’s sick and Hamish thinking she’s working and the girls off doing their own thing and Ross with her mother – or in this case, Finn, something that Nicki is trying to push to the back of her mind. Her mother is too lost in her own world to question Nicki, but Finn is another story. Finn will read her mind like the morning paper.

“I should probably get going anyway,” Nicki says. She doesn’t say that Hamish will be home soon from Terrace Bay, or that Finn will be wondering where she is, or that Ross needs her to make him supper. She doesn’t say any of that because these are not things that exist in their world, this afternoon, this motel room.