Chapter 197

“First, I want to say I’m sorry that I didn’t want you there for the talk,” Wanda said, reaching over from the counter to take my hand in hers. “I just needed to do this with a clear head, and whenever I’m around you- God, I feel like a fucking horny middle schooler or something. You make it hard for me to think clearly sometimes, Robbie. In a good way.”

“It’s OK,” I said. “I get it. It wasn’t a great feeling, but I get it. I’m having a hard time looking at things objectively while I’m with you and Becca and some of the others, too.”

Wanda smiled sadly and nodded. “So, we did do a lot of talking, and I’ll tell you a little about it, but not Terra’s stuff because that’s her’s to tell you if she wants. But the main reason I wanted the girls there was to listen in on my call.”

“She wanted impartial observers,” Cassidy said. “Not that I’m particularly impartial, but still.”

“So I told the girls I wanted them to listen but not say anything no matter what, and then I called Brodi. It was just after dinner time there, so he was expecting my call after yesterday. The first thing he asked me when he picked up was if I’d fucked you again, and he ... God, it made me feel so gross. He was excited to hear about it. Like he wanted to hear all the details. And when I told him I hadn’t, and we’d decided it was a bad idea, he was disappointed and asked why. And I told him it was because we were developing feelings for each other, strong ones, and that was supposed to be against the rules of our agreement, and he just ... He just said I should go for it. He wanted me to keep fucking you and wanted me to tell him about it. And then I asked him how he could want that, and he just said it was hot. He just kept saying it was hot, and kinky, and then he got more vulgar asking if I liked getting my pussy stuffed and stuff like that, and I ended up yelling at him to stop asking about it. And then he got mad that I wouldn’t tell him.”

She stopped there, leaning back against the wall of the Pilot’s Cabin with her eyes closed. I had one of her hands and Cassidy had the other, and she was squeezing us both tightly.

“You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to, or if it hurts,” I said quietly. I wanted to just stop the boat and turn all my attention to Wanda, but she seemed to want both physical reassurance and a little distance in attention.

“No, you need to hear this,” Wanda said. “You deserve to. I- After he got mad we went back and forth a bit, I was demanding to know who he had been sleeping with over there and he wouldn’t tell me. Things spun out at that point, and he just kept saying he had to go out. He sounded like a junky or something, but I’m pretty sure he isn’t doing drugs. I think he just- I think he’s going to a sex club or something over there. Or maybe like a BDSM dungeon or whatever. I checked our shared account and no money is missing, but I don’t know what he does with his own money. When I point-blank asked him if he was going to one of those places he called me a bitch for asking, and then he tried to gaslight me and turn everything around and make me feel bad for acting on our agreement and making things all messed up in his head. And then he just hung up, and wouldn’t pick back up or answer a text.”

“Wanda, I’m so sorry,” I said, squeezing her hand.

She was crying again, tears falling down her cheeks. She’d done up her makeup really lightly, with no mascara or anything, and I had a feeling she’d known she would be crying again during this conversation. Both of them were wearing the ballcaps, but Wanda’s was popping off her head since she had it on backwards and the bill was pressed into the cabin wall, leaving her hair messy as she sniffed hard and wiped at her face.