So I told the truth.
“About her.”
Derek stared at me.
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear the refrigerator cycling in the kitchen.
“What about her?” he asked.
I looked directly at him.
“I have feelings for your wife.”
His face changed in stages.
Confusion first.
Then disbelief.
Then something harder.
Vanessa looked at me as if she had expected almost anything except that sentence spoken in front of him.
Derek’s jaw tightened.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Since before I wanted to admit it.”
He stared at me for another moment, then turned to Vanessa.
“And you knew?”
She didn’t answer.
“Vanessa.”
“Yes.”
The word barely came out.
Derek looked between us.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said.
He pointed at me.
“I didn’t ask what you want me to believe.
I asked what happened.”
“Nothing physical happened.”
His eyes moved to Vanessa.
She swallowed.
“He’s telling the truth.”
Derek laughed once, without humor.
“So my wife knows my best friend has feelings for her, and somehow that qualifies as nothing?”
I said, “No.
It doesn’t.”
That stopped him.
I continued before either of them could speak.
“She’s been coming to my shop.
A lot.
Sometimes because of the table.
Sometimes because she brought coffee.
Sometimes just to sit there.”
Derek looked at Vanessa.
“How often?”
She stared at the tabletop.
“Two or three times a week sometimes.”
His eyes widened.
“When I was traveling?”
“Usually.”
The room tightened.
I remembered every visit I had allowed myself to classify as harmless because nothing obvious happened.
The coffee.
The books.
The porch conversations.
