Leaving at Noon Read Online Free PDF

I
don’t get away, put some time and space between us, things will
just get worse.” Her face paled, and once again the pain was
visible in her eyes. “I’m scared, Theo. I’m…terrified.” Maybe she
was, if her trembling hands were anything to go by. “If we go on
the way we have been, fighting and arguing nonstop, we’ll never
find a way out of this.” She swallowed and whispered softly, “We’re
going to start hating each other.”
    “ Motherfucker!” Theo
worried the scar on his wrist with his thumb. “You’re
serious?”
    Zoey nodded.
    “ There are options.” Like
not turning her back on their marriage and not running away when
the going got tough. “You could stay and fight for us.”
    “ The only fighting we’re
doing is with each other. We need time out.”
    “ I never took you for a
coward, Zoey.”
    “ A coward would stay and
let everything fall apart. I’m going in the hopes of saving what
little we have left.”
    “ You’re running
away.”
    “ No, I’m escaping us. For
a while.”
    “ Whatever, babe. Same
thing.”
    “ You know what the
frightening thing is?”
    Theo pursed his lips and glared at her.
    “ This is the most we’ve
said to each other in weeks.”
    That was the frightening thing? Her leaving
wasn’t scary as shit? “We could say a whole lot more if you stayed
and we worked it out.”
    “ The things we say to each
other hurt too much. Honest to God, I can’t take any more
pain.”
    “ So you’re going? Just
like that?”
    She nodded once. “My flight departs at two.
I need to be at the airport an hour before.”
    “ Are you asking me to take
you?” Was she out of her mind? No way was he helping his wife walk
away from him.
    “ No. Liv offered to drive
me.”
    Of course she did.
    Theo stared at her. The woman was so
emotionally cut off from him, she might as well already be in
Noosa.
    “ She’ll fetch me from
here,” Zoey said quietly as she rolled onto her side, presenting
him with her back—a side of his wife Theo had gotten to know all
too well these last few months. “I’m leaving at noon.”
    Jesus fucking Christ. Zoey wasn’t kidding.
She wasn’t making this shit up.
    What did she expect? That he’d stand up and
applaud her actions? Tell her she was doing the right thing? Making
the sensible decision?
    No fucking way.
    “ If you think I’m going to
stand here and watch you walk away from me, from us…” he gestured
wildly, waving his hand over his head, “…from everything we’ve
built together, because you’re too much of a coward to stay and
fight, you’re wrong. We’re in a pretty fucking shitty place right
now. But your leaving isn’t going to help. It’s not going to
resolve anything. I won’t sit here and watch you go.” His jaw was
rigid, making speech almost impossible. He grabbed a jacket from
the chair in the corner. “I’m outta here, babe. I’ll be back
tomorrow at twelve fifteen. I hope, for your sake and mine, you’re
here when I get home.”
    Those were the last words he spoke before he
stormed from the room. Stopping only to haul his keys off the
table, he got the hell out of the house he and Zoey had bought
together to live in for the rest of their happily married fucking
lives.

Chapter Three
     
    “ Let it be stated that you
still qualify as the best darn bartender in Australia.” Zoey
punctuated her statement with a big sip of her
margarita.
    “ Once a great bartender,
always a great bartender,” Fiona said with a smile and no pretense
at false modesty.
    “ See? All those late
nights pouring other people drinks paid off again. You have just
made your friend happy.” That wasn’t the only payoff. Fiona’s years
of experience had also made her the part owner of two of the
hippest wine-and-cocktails bars in Australia.
    “ I’d hazard a guess it’s
the tequila making you happy, not me. But hey…” Fiona smiled sadly.
“We can’t be sure. My skills versus your fourth margarita. It’s a
tough