Mood Swing. Jane Graves
stuck her key in the lock and opened the door. Dale came to attention right away, and when their eyes met, she smiled. Just a little. And when he sat back on the sofa, his face stoic, her heart crumbled.
“Now, don’t you boys get up on my account,” Tonya said, with just the right amount of offhanded sarcasm, as if she really didn’t give a damn about any of this. “I just came by for a few things.”
She went into their bedroom, where she found the bed neatly made. That didn’t surprise her. Whenever she told other women that Dale actually did housework, they always said, All those good looks, and he helps out, too? It had always made her feel so good to be able to give them a superior little smile that said, you bet he does, and he’s all mine.
But that wasn’t true. He wasn’t all hers. Not anymore.
She pulled back the bedspread a little and gave the pillowcases a sniff, relieved to find no evidence of Kendra’s god-awful perfume. They just smelled like Dale. She leaned in closer and inhaled again.
“Tonya?”
She spun around to see Dale leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, those big, beautiful biceps bulging.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I told you, honey,” she said, dropping the bedspread and heading for the closet. “I came to pick up a few things.”
She opened the door and blindly pulled a few sweaters off hangers, then grabbed a pair of shoes.
“Those are sandals,” he said. “It’s forty degrees out.”
“Fashion before comfort, you know?”
“Did you go to your first class tonight?”
“Of course I did. Legally speaking, I didn’t have a choice, now did I?”
“Because we’re not going to work this out until you learn to control your temper.”
“We’re not going to work this out,” she said, “until you stop screwing other women.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could yank them back. Making him mad wasn’t going to help things. A little shaky, she turned to grab another sweater.
“Why are you really here?” Dale asked.
“To get some things, like I told you. Oh, yeah. And I was thinking maybe you’d want to give me that apology I’ve been waiting for.”
“It’s the other way around. You assaulted me.”
“Yeah, and you cheated on me.”
“I’ve denied that all I’m going to.”
“And you called the police on me, too. That was really low.”
“It wasn’t the first time you’d thrown a few dishes around. Enough was enough.”
“But calling the cops?” She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t the boys down at the station house think that was a little wussy?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“They’ve all met you.”
The insult hurt more than she would have imagined. “You’re six-three, two-twenty! Like I could actually hurt you?”
“Size doesn’t matter.”
Tonya snorted. “Is that what Kendra Willis told you?”
He turned away. “Take the clothes and go.”
As Dale disappeared down the hall, Tonya felt her eyes tear up. No. Don’t you dare cry.
She sniffed a little and blinked a lot until she finally got herself under control. Then she strode out of the room with her sweaters over her arm and that stupid pair of sandals dangling from her fingers.
Damn it, damn it! How had everything gotten all turned around? She hadn’t wanted to fight with him. She’d wanted to make up with him and enjoy all the perks that went along with that. She missed his big, strong body wrapped around hers at night, his warm breath against her ear, the slow, steady beating of his heart. Just the idea of him holding another woman like that was more than she could bear.
She went back into the living room, where Dale and Cliff were whooping up a storm over a Cowboys touchdown. At the sound of her footsteps, Cliff turned around. His smile evaporated, and he gave her a look that said he hoped she wasn’t thinking about grabbing a few cups and saucers to use as projectiles.
Dale didn’t bother to look at her at all.
Tonya left the house, resisting the urge to slam the door behind her. She got into her car and reached down to start the engine, only to have her eyes fill with tears again.
Men cheat.
She’d heard her mother say that since Tonya was old enough to remember. With three cheating husbands, her mother probably knew what she was talking about. The minute you give a man an inch, she always said, he’ll take a mile.
And her mother had never given an inch. Not one.
Tonya still remembered cowering in the hall when she was seven years old, listening to her mother screaming accusations at her father. When he left for work the next day, her mother had dumped his stuff on the front lawn and changed the locks on the doors, telling Tonya that her father was gone and to quit crying because they were better off without him.
Two stepfathers came next, and the story was the same. Through it all, Tonya grew more and more suspicious of men and their motives. At the same time she would lie awake at night and imagine a forever kind of love with a man who would want her and only her. It was nothing but a fairy tale, of course, but that didn’t keep her from wanting it.
Then, when she was twenty-three, Jared had come into her life, a charming motorcycle mechanic with a line of bull a mile long. Six months into a marriage that seemed to be going along just fine, she saw his car parked at a no-tell motel on the east side of town. When she confronted him about it later, he spun some story about stopping by to see a buddy from out of town who was staying there.
Relieved, she had told the other stylists at work what had really been going on. To her surprise, they had laughed out loud. Tonya had shouted at them to shut up, telling them that Jared loved her and would never cheat on her. A week later she had dropped by his shop unexpectedly and found him and a slutty little blonde going at it on the ugly vinyl sofa in his office, and she wondered how many other times it had happened that she’d never known about. That was the moment she had come to believe wholeheartedly that her mother was right.
Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.
Eventually she’d had to tell the girls what had happened and face the humiliation. They’d acted sympathetic, but she could see that look in their eyes. You’re such a sap. Didn’t we tell you he was a cheating fool?
Tonya had walked away from that experience wondering if, like red hair or brown eyes, attracting cheating men ran in families, and for the next twelve years she believed that her dream of a forever kind of love was well and truly gone.
Then she met Dale.
She turned and looked back at the house, at Dale lounging on the sofa. No matter how big a fool it made her, she still wanted him so much she could barely breathe. She thought she’d been in love with Jared, but she knew now that she couldn’t possibly have been because he had never made her feel the hot, breathless, swooping sensation that came over her every time she looked at Dale.
But now everything was a big, fat mess. Was she supposed to listen to his lame excuses the way she’d listened to Jared’s? Defend him? Tell everyone that even though it looked bad, of course he’d never cheat on her?
If she did, she had the most terrible feeling that the joke was going to be on her again.
She wiped away her tears and started the car, intending