Chapter Thirteen
Seth and I flew back to Seattle the next day. A lot of demons had wanted to talk to me, but I needed to get out of that hotel as soon as possible. In fact, I’d hightailed it out of the ballroom once Starla and Clyde had been freed. I hadn’t stuck around because I had a feeling Noelle was simply going to be swapped into their place for the evening’s entertainment.
Sitting beside Seth for the two-and-a-half hour flight home brought all the other events of last night back to me. As we held hands and recounted the bizarre trial events, he in no way acted as though he’d faced temptation and won last night. I in no way acted as though I’d been the cause of that temptation and had subsequently lost the one chance we might have had for physical intimacy. The fact that my exploits had led to two demons’ freedom was little comfort.
“She really killed him?” asked Seth in amazement.
“Yup.”
“But she loved him…or something, right?”
“Yup.”
“Then how could she have done that?”
I stared at his profile, at the cheekbones and brown eyes I loved. I thought about losing him, how I would feel if he chose another woman. I wouldn’t be driven to kill him, of course, but…well, I could empathize with the pain.
“Because people do stupid things for love,” I murmured sadly, thinking of my own sins.
He turned and met my eyes, compassion shining in them. “You okay?”
I hesitated, and for a brief moment, the instinct was there. I almost spilled everything I’d done in my silly Beth obsession. After all, Seth and I had recently had big discussions about honesty in relationships. He was a big believer in telling the truth, and I wanted to live up to his ideals. Yet, the words stuck in my throat.
“Fine,” I said instead. “Just worn out…long week.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I hear you.” His gaze turned inward, and I had a feeling he was thinking of the condo. He opened his mouth, like he too might say something, then closed it. I was pretty sure I knew what had been about to come out.
“So,” I said carefully. “Where’d you go this morning?” He’d gotten in some writing before our plane left. “The pig café?”
He smiled faintly. “No. I went back to that diner…”
“Oh?”
“Yeah…weird thing. That waitress you saw…she was working, and I told her I was leaving and…”
My smile was frozen on my face as I attempted to play blasé. “And?”
Again, I had the feeling he was about to tell me about last night, and again, he held back.
“I don’t know. Just weird. She was acting really strange when I talked to her…”
Like, say, when he talked to her about events she had no clue about?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He shook his head, letting it go. I wondered if he’d tried to apologize to her. He probably thought her obliviousness was feigned as retaliation. “I don’t know. Like I said, she was just being weird.”
He squeezed my hand, and we settled back into our seats. Both of us held our own secrets, our own guilt. Neither of us had the courage to bring them up. I wondered if that’s how all couples were, hiding small, silent sins.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t resist asking, “Weird, huh? Wait…didn’t you say she reminded you of me? Are you saying I’m weird?”
Seth laughed. He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thetis, there are no adjectives for you. And the two of you are nothing alike.”
“Really? I mean, you acted like we were twins or something.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You did,” I teased. “It was like you couldn’t tell us apart.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes at my joking. “I told you, you’re nothing alike. You don’t act alike. You don’t think alike. You don’t talk alike.”
“Or look alike,” I added.
“Right,” he agreed. After another squeeze of my hand, he released it and opened up his laptop.
Watching, I figured I should be glad he didn’t suspect anything. I’d gotten away with my blunder, my test of his fidelity. I should feel glad. Except I didn’t.
“People do stupid things for love,” I muttered under my breath.
Seth glanced at me. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing.”