Page 51 of Chasing the Other Woman

My wife, who notices shifts in wind before instruments catch up. My wife, who can look at a sky and read danger in the color of it. My wife, who still didn't think to suspect a man who brought her coffee because she was too busy doing the job I had trapped her inside.

"Everything you thought you saw," Tony says, "we wanted you to see it."

The words strip the air out of my lungs.

The texts. The looks. Tony near her desk. Luci telling me not to upset Sam by asking questions. The posts. The laughter in the truck. The clinic.

God, the clinic.

Sam rushing in, wild-eyed and terrified because she thought I was hurt worse than I was. Luci in my arms. Sam's face draining of color.

I could have let go.

I could have crossed that room.

I could have said, Sammy Girl, no. Come here. I'm okay. It's not what you think.

Instead, I stayed exactly where I was.

Because I was angry. Because I'd seen Tony hovering with his hands on her neck and let suspicion rot through the place where trust should have been. Because some mean, wounded part of me wanted Sam to feel the same jealousy I thought she'd handed me.

Then I went home and told her that Luci was the one I wanted in the truck with me.

My hand braces against the motel door.

Sam had been there.

She warned me. I ignored her. She left command and came running anyway.

Luci built the stage. Tony helped hang the lights.

I still spoke the lines.

"You need to say something," Tony says, quiet.

I look at him.

He takes a half step back. "I know. I know you want to hit me again."

"I do."

He nods once.

"But that would be too easy," I say.

His brow furrows.

I pull the room key from my pocket, but my fingers close around Sam's ring instead. Small. Cold. Real.

For months, I punished my wife for a betrayal she never committed. Before that I punished her for the fear that kept coursing through my veins at the thought of ever coming that close to losing her again.

"I trusted the wrong people," I say. "But I made the choices."

Tony's face shifts. He looks relieved for half a second, like maybe I've given him something that lets him breathe easier.

I don't.

"You helped her hurt my wife," I say. "And I let you."