Foolish Me

Chapter 2

Chapter 2I was putting a fresh supply of lube in Wills’s nightstand when I found them, a small stack of credit cards neatly banded together.

The name on the cards was William Matheson. I realized they were the ones I had given him.

Seeing them reminded me that although all the statements had been paid for the month of August, none of them had the charges for our vacation in Key West.

I went to his office, hovering in the doorway for a moment. It was his office, after all, and I never went in there unless he was there also. Still, I had to know what was going on.

The bottom right drawer of his desk was for hanging files. They were in alphabetical order.

I checked “A” first, for American Express. There was nothing there. There was nothing under “C” for credit cards, “D” for Discover, or “M” for MasterCard either, but there were a number of bills for different cards under “V” for Visa.

And there it was. He had paid for everything—the hotel, our meals, the excursions—with his own card.

“Son of a bitch.” I sank back in the plush chair I’d bought for him. Why hadn’t he used the cards I’d given him? He loved the power drill I’d bought him. He said he liked having me buy things for him.

There was another photo on his desk across from the grainy one of the two of us kissing. The grainy photo must have been taken with a telephoto lens, and I’d had no clue where that had come from. He’d just grinned when I asked, and refused to tell me.

I picked up the new picture frame. This photo was of the two of us at one of Davis House’s happy hours, where the management offered complimentary soda, beer, or wine to its guests. The staff had gone around snapping pictures, and once they were developed, one set went into the hotel’s own gallery, while another set was available for sale in the lobby. Wills had gone down to look at them and had returned with a plastic bag.

“This is mine.” He’d grinned at me and put it in his suitcase. “You go get your own.”

We were going snorkeling that day, and when we got back to the room, I was nursing a headache from the sun. I never did get down to the lobby.

In the photo Wills had bought, I was smiling into the camera, but he was looking at me. The expression on his face…

He loved me for who I was, not what I could give him.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and put the frame back in its place. Then I shut the file drawer and made sure there was no evidence I’d been snooping.

I went back into the bedroom, took the small stack of credit cards, refastened the rubber band around them, and put them back into the drawer, exactly where I’d found them.