Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [55]
A card sticking from the bouquet read:
Christine,
Dating you the first time was unforgettable.
Let’s make this second go-round the same.
Milo was locking the door, his back to the driveway, when he heard a car pull in behind him. His heart sank. The surprise that he planned for his wife would be muted at best if she found him skulking away. He turned, expecting to see Christine’s blue Jetta, but instead saw a black Jeep Wrangler coming to a halt. The top was down and Christine was sitting in the passenger seat beside a man Milo didn’t recognize. Tall, with dark hair and a goatee, and wearing mirrored sunglasses, he was the kind of guy who outweighed Milo by fifty pounds but was still in better shape than he was. He was thick in the neck, the arms, and the chest, with an indeterminable tattoo emerging from underneath the collar of his polo shirt, his face remained expressionless as he engaged the emergency brake and turned the vehicle off.
Milo didn’t like the look of him one bit.
A baby was sleeping in a car seat behind the man, dressed in a pink and white jumper.
chapter 14
“You fucking son of a bitch! How dare you accuse me of cheating!” Christine was shouting into the phone so loudly that her voice was distorted, forcing Milo to position the receiver a good six inches from his ear.
“Well, what am I supposed to think? You pull into the driveway in another guy’s car, and I saw the playpen in the bedroom. What did you expect?”
“How about a little trust, Milo? How about a little faith in your own wife?”
Admittedly, Milo wasn’t pleased with his response after seeing Christine pull into the driveway with the stranger, but he also felt that the deck had been stacked against him from the start. All the details in the scene had pointed to something shady and illicit, as if the universe had been plotting his overreaction.
The good-looking guy with the goatee and the tattoo.
The mirrored sunglasses.
The standard transmission.
Christine’s windblown hair.
The playpen in the bedroom.
Even the Jeep made things appear less than innocent. Had the guy been driving a Honda Accord or even a Subaru Forrester, Milo might not have jumped to the same conclusions and lost his temper. But there was something about a Jeep, jet black, top down, mud on the tires, padded roll bars, Nirvana on the radio. It all screamed, Sex! Sex! Sex!
And there had been the sudden burst of jealousy that had caught him off guard as well. Though Christine had her fair share of male friends from the office, many of them high-powered attorneys with luxury automobiles and personal trainers, Milo had never felt a hint of jealousy about his wife’s relationship with these men.
But this time, standing on his front stoop, staring down on this scene, things were different.
Already his face was flushing, his hands balling into fists, his mind instantly running through possible scenarios that would place Christine and this man in these circumstances.
None of them proved to be very innocent.
Without a moment of thought or reflection, Milo had turned back into the kitchen, snatched the roses from the table, and exited the house, doing his best to ignore his wife and her companion even though he had to walk directly in front of the Jeep and along the passenger side in order to reach his car on the other side of the driveway.
“Milo? What the hell are you doing?” Christine asked, still seated and buckled in the Jeep. The two vehicles were parked side by side, the driver’s side door of Milo’s car and the passenger side door of the Jeep almost perfectly aligned, making it impossible to avoid his wife.
“What do you mean?” Milo asked, trying to avoid eye contact while reaching for the door to his car. He just wanted to get in his car and leave as quickly as possible.
“What do I mean? How about starting with what you were doing in the house?