Gavin’s eyebrow twitched, and the desire in his eyes dissipated into something else. Something that looked a lot like the same flash of hurt she’d seen the night when she admitted that she’d been faking it in bed.

He turned and stormed out, not even bothering to shut the shower door.

Thea sank back against the slick, wet wall. This didn’t feel like a victory.

Thea stood under the water until her skin chilled. Then she dressed quickly and opened her bedroom door to listen for the girls. Their giggles combined with Liv’s voice assured her that at least one Thanksgiving tradition would not be destroyed today. Liv was sneaking them an early piece of pumpkin pie. She heard nothing that indicated Gavin had gone downstairs to join them, and the guest room door was closed.

Thea went back into her room and entered her closet to stare at her clothes. Last year, when they went to Del’s, Thea had dressed up because that’s what WAGs did. They wore their best clothes and showed off to one another. And dammit, she did not have the energy for that this year.

She finally settled on a pair of leggings and a long tunic sweater. Her hair was going up in a messy bun, and she was not going to spend more than a couple of minutes on makeup. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t care what they thought of her. She had only a few weeks left as a WAG, anyway.

When she came out of her closet, she found Gavin sitting on the bed. He was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt that tugged impatiently over his biceps as she leaned on his knees.

“What are you doing in here?”

He looked up. “What did you mean by that? What you said in the shower.”

Thea moved to her dresser, her bare feet silent on the plush carpet. “Nothing. I just was trying to be coy.”

“OK, but just because I feel like torturing myself, and, trust me, this question has tortured me every night since you-know-what, do you?”

She had a hard time following his sentence. “Do I what?”

“Take care of yourself wh-when we’re done? Sneak off into the bathroom and finish yourself off when I finally roll off you?”

“Are you seriously asking me if I masturbate?”

“No. I’m asking if you ever masturbate after sex with me.”

Thea opened a drawer and thought again about lying. But once again, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Lying. Faking it. Pretending everything was perfect. None of those things had done either of them any good. She withdrew a pair of socks and turned around. “Yes, sometimes I do.”

Gavin’s face fell and flushed red.

“If you didn’t want to know the answer, why did you ask?”

“Just because I wanted to know doesn’t mean the answer doesn’t hurt.”

“Why should it hurt? Everyone masturbates. You going to tell me you’ve never masturbated?”

He shot to his feet and surged forward. “Hell yes, I masturbate. Every time I’m on the road, I lie in that hotel bed and think of you, fantasizing about coming home and getting the real thing.” His face twisted into a pained sneer. “Except even that wasn’t the real thing, was it, Thea?”

Thea drew herself tall, even as the slap of his words stung. “Yet you’re so eager to go back to when things were perfect.”

The hard edges of his face softened with an apology she didn’t want to hear. “Thea—”

“Get out of my room, Gavin.”

CHAPTER TEN

Thea wouldn’t look at him when Gavin walked into the kitchen a few minutes later. He couldn’t blame her. He’d damn near strangled himself after he said what he did, but he was humiliated, and humiliation was his own personal Kryptonite. Always had been. Beastly things came out of his mouth when his pride was on the line. And holy shit, knowing his wife had to take matters into her own hands because he routinely left her unsatisfied in bed was almost more than his fragile ego could handle. So he lashed out and threatened to destroy whatever tiny amount of progress they’d made last night.

Thea stood at the island, covering pies they would take to Del’s with tinfoil. His ugly words hung in the air between them.

He settled on something safe to break the taut silence. “Where are Ava and Amelia?”

“Doing yoga in the basement with Liv.”

The smell of coffee lured him to the counter by the stove. He filled a mug, dumped some shit in it—he’d never understand people who could drink it black—and turned around to lean against the counter. Minutes passed in silence. Gavin finally set his cup down. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t even look up. “For what?”

Gavin crossed the kitchen to stand next to her. Her hair had fallen across one cheek as she looked down. He brushed it back over her shoulder. “I w-w-was an asshole. I’m sorry.”

“You should never be sorry for speakin’ your truth.” She said it in a strange, Southern drawl, the one she used when quoting her Gran Gran. For as long as Gavin had known Thea, she’d had an endless well of her grandmother’s sage wisdom to draw upon.

Thea moved away from him and pointed in the general direction of all six pies. “These pies need to go out to the car.”

Gavin reached for her hand.

She yanked it from him. “There’s no point, Gavin. This will all be over after Christmas, anyway.”

She stormed away before he could answer. He heard her padded footsteps carrying her back upstairs. Gavin plunked his elbows on the counter and lowered his head into his hands.

“Rough night in the guest room?”

Gavin jumped and looked up. Liv had materialized out of nowhere. She’d worked so late last night that this was his first run-in with her since coming home. “What are the girls doing?”

“Running with scissors.”

His expression must have been thunderous because she backed down. “God, chill. They’re watching TV with the dog. I just ran up to get them some orange juice.”

She filled two small sippy cups, gave him a quizzical look, and returned the juice to the fridge. She started to leave but he stopped her.

“Liv.”

She turned around.

“Thank you for being here for Thea and the girls. I know you’ve been a big help.”

She snorted. “I didn’t do it for you, asshole.”

“I know. All the same . . .”

She rolled her eyes and headed toward the basement, but she stopped at the last minute and turned back around.

“Hey, Gavin?”

He looked up once more. She smiled in a dangerous way. “If you do anything to hurt my sister again, I will poison your protein powder. Happy Thanksgiving!”

Then she disappeared into the basement.

He busied himself for the next several minutes carrying all six pies out to the car and then wandered to the living room to call his parents just to get it over with. They still had a landline, and an unexpected voice answered the phone.

“You owe me for this,” his younger brother, Sebastian, hissed by way of saying hello.

“What’re you doing there?”

“Filling in for you. Mom was crying about how she wasn’t going to have any family with her this year for Thanksgiving, and the next thing I knew, I was packing my duffel bag. I’ve been up since five, since Mom has to get the turkey in early enough for us to eat by two.”

Gavin pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’ll survive. Let me talk to Dad.”

“He’s in the shower. Talk to Mom.”

He tried to protest because there had to be a rule of some kind about the amount of time one had to wait between a conversation about jerking off and a phone call with one’s mother. But Sebastian had pulled the phone away from his ear.

A moment later, his mother got on the line. “Hey, honey! Happy Thanksgiving!”

“Hey, Mom. How big is the turkey this year?”

It was a running family joke that his mom always bought a turkey three times the size of what they actually needed. His mother lived in fear of people starving to death in her presence.

“Almost eighteen pounds,” she said. “He’s a big ’un.”

Gavin could picture her instantly. She was probably wearing her ruffled apron, the one she only wore on holidays. And she’d have her hair twisted on top of her head so it didn’t get in the way while she cooked. Pretty soon, she’d pour herself a mug of hot spiced cider from the slow cooker and she’d turn on Christmas music, because in the Scott household, Thanksgiving Day was officially the start of the Christmas season.

“I sure wish you guys were here,” she said. “I miss you and the girls. And Thea. Gosh, I’ve tried to call her several times for the past couple of weeks but keep getting her voicemail. Oh— did she get my email?”

“I have no idea.”

“Oh, well, she probably just didn’t tell you. I asked what the girls want for Christmas this year.”

“You could just ask me.”

She made a psh noise with her lips.

“You think I don’t know what my daughters want for Christmas? Geez, thanks.”

“I think Thea probably already has a color-coded spreadsheet with links of where to buy everything and what’s already on sale.”

Despite his mood, Gavin smiled. Yes, that sounded exactly like Thea.

“Hey, maybe you guys can come here for Christmas!” his mom said. “You could spend Christmas Eve here, and the girls could open their stockings here. Oh, Gavin, it would be so fun.”

An ache bloomed in his chest at the picture she painted. It would be fun, but there was no way Thea, who had just appeared at the bottom of the stairs, would agree to it.

“Hey, Thea’s standing right here. Do you want to talk to her and see if she got the email?” Gavin held out the phone. “It’s my mom.”

Thea gave him a look that could extinguish a fire. But she sucked in a breath and put on her best voice. “Hey, Susan. Happy Thanksgiving.”

Gavin listened to Thea’s half of the conversation, and the ache spread. His parents adored Thea. They said she was the daughter they always wanted and joked that Sebastian was going to have to work extra hard to even come close to finding a wife as perfect as Gavin’s.