This isn't weird.

Small World

This wasn't a big deal, he told himself. Maybe Caleb had ended up on the same road by coincidence. Maybe he had just recognized Ben's car and stopped to say hello. He pulled open the door and stepped out, trying his best to look amiable, though his chest felt so tight he could hardly breathe. "Oh, hi there," he said as he approached. "Small world."

Caleb's face and hair were damp with sweat, perhaps a result of the unseasonably heavy canvas jacket he was wearing with his hands shoved into the pockets. One hand came out to remove the cigarette from his lips as Ben approached. "Well, if it ain't Mr. Langley," he said, exhaling a cloud of noxious smoke. "Benjamin Langley, that right?"

"Mmhmm," Ben agreed with a thin smile.

"Good, strong name you got yourself there, Benjamin Langley," Caleb said. As he took another long drag from his cigarette, his brows knitted into an exaggerated frown, as if wracking his brain to remember something. "No, wait, that ain't right. It was Langford," he corrected himself. "Silly me."

The same fear Ben had felt in Molly's living room was beginning to creep through his nervous system once again, making his limbs feel cold and numb as the rest of his body grew uncomfortably hot. He opened his mouth, but they both knew he had nothing to say.

Caleb extinguished his cigarette against the hood of Ben's car and flicked it onto the ground before shoving his hand back into his jacket. "Funny how you and the missus take separate cars out to visit my wife, ain't it, Mr. Langford?" he asked, straightening up.

Fuck. It hadn't even occurred to Ben that the third vehicle parked at Molly's house could poke a hole in Shelby's cover story. He quickly began thinking up excuses—it felt rude to correct him on the last name, and they had to take separate cars because of differing plans for the evening—but he couldn't bring himself to commit to the lie.

"Sorry," he said instead, his mouth so dry it was difficult to speak. "Shelby has a weird sense of humor. She was just trying to mess with me."

"That right, now?" Caleb took a few steps toward Ben, his eyes narrowing. Up close, they looked heavily dilated. "So what exactly is your relationship with my wife, then?"

"Friends! Just friends. We only met just yesterday—"

"Yesterday, huh? And she took you home with'er?"

"No! No, I mean—look, I'm a friend of Millie's—"

"Who?"

"Her sister. Camilla. I'm looking for her, that's the only reason I'm here."

"Her sister ain't said shit to her in years."

"She's been here for six months. She came back when Molly... got hurt. Aren't you the one that called her?"

"That right? Huh, never thought she'd actually show up."

"Then why did you call?"

"Eh, my girlfriend thought it was a good idea. Guess she was right about somethin' for once."

It took all of Ben's will to keep the disgust off of his face. The man had gone so long without checking in on his critically injured wife that he wasn't even aware her estranged sister had been living with her six fucking months. Now, even in the middle of a jealous rage, he casually referred to his girlfriend without a trace of irony, let alone shame. "Well, Millie—Camilla—has been here, but she took off a few days ago, and I'm looking for her," Ben explained. "I've never even been to Texas before. I just came to talk to Molly to see if I could find anything out."

"That right? And where did y'all go off to all day?"

"Molly wanted to introduce me to another friend of Millie's, in case she might know something that could help me find her."