Twisted Read Free

Erik and the woman left. She didn’t say a word. She just turned her head toward the window.
    Alexis peered over, too, just in time to see Erik give the woman an affectionate pat on the rear end while helping her into the front passenger seat of the car.
    Tina went back to her dessert.
    Alexis looked over at Kevin. Their eyes met. His dark eyebrows knitted together, indicating anger. No one spoke. They just finished up dessert. Kevin signaled for the waitress to bring the bill. Moments later, they were back in his car headed for home.
     
    ****
     
    Tina busied herself getting dinner prepared. True, she wasn’t hungry after eating Thai with Kevin and Alexis, but she made it a point to fix Erik a hot meal whenever he came home from work. Hell, she had even fired her cook so that she could do it personally. It didn’t matter that she’d seen him in the same Thai restaurant earlier…tradition was tradition.
    She removed the baked chicken from the oven and set the baking pan on a butcher block to cool while she fixed the au-gratin potatoes and green beans. She added the little cocktail onions to the beans just the way Erik liked it. Once both of them were done, she busied herself washing the dishes and setting the table. Erik came home three hours later looking tired, and the food was cold.
    Erik carried his jacket over his shoulder and his briefcase in his other hand.
    “Hard day?” Tina asked, coming down to greet him.
    Erik nodded and kissed her weakly on the cheek. “Sometimes clients are very disagreeable.”
    “Are you hungry?” she asked.
    “Just a little,” he replied. “What’s for dinner?”
    “Baked chicken, potatoes, and green beans.”
    He yawned. “Sounds yummy. Warm me some while I go hop in the shower.” He hugged her this time, giving her an affectionate slap on the behind. “I’ll only be a moment.”
    “Okay,” Tina said. She liked him when he was like this, playful and romantic. She watched him walk away, sniffing the air. He’d changed his cologne. Tina frowned. She didn’t like it because it smelled too feminine and he was all man.
    Erik didn’t talk much during dinner, but Tina didn’t mind because she wasn’t much of a conversationalist either. He went to the den afterwards while she re-cleaned the kitchen and put the remaining leftovers away.
    Tina walked upstairs to their bedroom, pulled out a sexy new nightgown, and entered the bathroom for a bath. Erik still hadn’t come up to bed by the time she exited. She glanced over at the clock. Eleven p.m. She had thought to surprise him with the new negligee, a see-through blue alluring thing that he pointed out in a magazine one day, but she didn’t know how long she could stay awake. By midnight, she just gave up and went to sleep.
     
    ****
     
    Erik still wasn’t in bed when the alarm sounded at five the next morning. Tina walked down the stairs and headed toward the den. He wasn’t there either. Maybe he had come up later and decided to sleep in the guestroom instead of disturbing her. Tina put on a fresh pot of coffee, put a coffee cake into the oven, and was about to head back upstairs to dress when she decided to go outside to get the morning newspaper so Erik could read it while he ate breakfast. She opened the front door, stepped outside, and immediately noted something amiss. The garage door was open. She walked back into the house and grabbed the telephone just in case she needed to call the police, and walked back through the kitchen and opened the door that led to the attached garage. Erik’s car was gone. Tina pressed the button near the kitchen door and lowered the garage door, walked back into the kitchen, and hung the phone back up. She sighed. He probably had an early meeting and forgot to close the door.
    Tina walked back through the kitchen and headed upstairs to dress, thinking she’d just bring the coffee cake to work and share it with the other people in the office.
     
    ****
     
    Strange, Erik wasn’t at