Free Winter Blues by Jade Goodmore

further highlighting my disgust. I look the same as I did just hours ago and yet I look completely different. My lips have been tarnished, my cheeks heated with hot betrayal. My eyes are bloodshot, but that at least can be blamed on the booze. I attempt to wash the feel of Blue from my traitorous lips but I give up. I think I’d have more success with bleach.
    S napped out of my self-deprecation by raised voices from the bar, I regretfully leave my hiding place. Having suddenly sobered up, I push open the door and turn out. Planning on grabbing my coat and bag and making a sharp exit, I make my way to where they are on my stool. Except they’re not there. They’re in the arms of a stern looking Reid as he rows with Blue.
    “You can’t drag her away if she doesn’t want to go,” Blue argues. His hands are in his pockets in an attempt to look calm, but he’s failing miserably.
    “Yes, I can. She is my wife,” Reid rebukes, looking more pissed off by the second.
    “And that makes her your property?”
    “No, it makes her my responsibility,” Reid answers as his hand glides agitatedly through his wild hair.
    “Then you’re doing a piss-poor job.”
    “HEY!” Reid snaps, his booming voice cracking through the still air like a whip and his finger prodding sharply in Blue’s direction. Without his glasses his eyes look even more menacing.
    Neither has realized that I am witness to this pissing contest. When their chests collide I dart toward them, finding myself ineffectually tearing them apart.
    “What are you doing?” I scream when my feeble attempt to separate them fails. I push against them again. “Stop!”
    Pulling away enough to let me stand between them, their harsh stares fall on me rather than each other. I have never felt more pressure to resolve a dispute than I do right now, and I’m a teacher.
    “You’re going to let him order you around like this?” Blue asks, acting all gallant as if he hasn’t just had his tongue down my throat.
    Reid steps closer, about to argue some more, but I settle a palm on his chest, silently begging him to stop. “He’s not ordering me around. I want to go home and that’s where my husband is taking me.” I can only hope that my subtle statement shows my immediate regret at what just happened. I can’t say anymore with Reid here but something, anything, needs to be said so that Blue knows it was a mistake.
    “You don’t have to go,” Blue says, a little too quietly.
    “I want to.”
    Looking deflated but accepting, Blue shrugs. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
    “Actually, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do the gigs like we agreed. I mean, I obviously can’t keep away from the drink when I’m here. I don’t think I should tempt myself again,” I say, trying for subtle again but knowing damn well that Blue knows I am referring to him. He says nothing, but huffs pointedly. His agitation is clear and I know how he feels. I want to explain further and I have no doubt that he wants to talk too, but we can’t. And I can’t see him again. I don’t want to see him again.
    “Bye,” I call, taking Reid’s arm and tugging him toward the door. I wave apologetically at Veda and Zach at the bar. I don’t know if they saw what happened between Blue and I, but either way that display of overt masculinity was embarrassing for all of us.
    The second we exit onto the street I relinquish Reid’s arm and storm ahead. I’m freezing without my coat but I can’t even look at Reid let alone ask him for it. I’m fighting an internal battle and I don’t want Reid privy to it. I’m so mad at him for his earlier lack of respect, lack of sensitivity, lack of romance, as well as the way he has just conducted himself in front of my new friends, but I know that none of that compares to what I’ve just done. I have just kissed away my fidelity, drunkenly hand ed it over as if it were little more than handshake.
    I’ve cheated on my husband.
    I don’t