Chapter 74
The Search History
That night, Nathan did not hide his phone.
It was a small thing. Ridiculously small, considering what had passed between them on the water, but marriage was built from small things until the small things became architecture.
He placed the phone on the coffee table between them while they sat on opposite ends of the sofa, a movie playing unwatched on the television.
Marissa noticed.
Of course she noticed. She had spent years noticing what Nathan preferred not to name.
"You want me to ask," she said.
He kept his eyes on the movie, where two actors were arguing in a kitchen with far worse dialogue than the one he was living. "I want not to be hiding."
She muted the television.
The sudden quiet felt ceremonial.
Nathan picked up the phone, unlocked it, and handed it to her.
Marissa looked at the screen before taking it. "Are you sure?"
"No," he said. "But I am trying to be."
She accepted the phone with both hands as if it were breakable. Her thumb hovered over the browser history. Then she looked up.
"I do not want to inspect you."
"I know."
"Then why?"
"Because last night made me realize how many private rooms I keep inside myself. Some are harmless. Some are not. I do not want this one to grow mold in the dark."
The corner of her mouth lifted faintly. "That may be the least romantic sentence anyone has ever said about desire."
"I am landlocked. My metaphors are suffering."
She opened the history.
There it was: Midnight Mercy Charters. Overnight private charter. Black Lantern Cove. Dane Mercer captain reviews. What happens after a first hotwife experience. Is jealousy normal. How to talk after consensual non-monogamy. Difference between fantasy and consent. Marriage after cuckold fantasy.
Nathan watched her read the list and felt heat climb his neck.
The most embarrassing entries were not the sexual ones. They were the frightened ones.
Marissa's face did not harden. That almost undid him.
She set the phone down carefully.
"You were scared," she said.
"Yes."
"And curious."
"Yes."
"And trying to understand instead of punish me."
He swallowed. "Trying. Not always succeeding."
She moved closer on the sofa, not all the way, just enough to cross the deliberate distance they had been pretending was comfort.
"I looked things up too," she said.
Nathan turned toward her.
"Not Dane's site." She gave him a look before he could speak. "Mostly stories. Forums. People talking about what happens when fantasy becomes a door instead of a screen."
"And?"
"People are very confident on the internet."
He laughed once. "Disaster."
"But underneath all the noise, the careful ones kept saying the same thing. Talk before. Talk during. Talk after. Do not use another person to fix a marriage. Do not pretend jealousy means no. Do not pretend arousal means yes."
Nathan breathed out slowly.
"That sounds like Dane," he said.
Marissa nodded. "That is why he feels dangerous in a different way. He is not selling recklessness."
The movie screen flickered across her face, blue and white and gold.
Nathan looked at the muted actors, then back at his wife. "Do you want me to ask the question?"
Her eyes held his. "Yes."
The room seemed to tilt toward them.
"Do you want to go back?"
Marissa did not answer quickly. He loved her for that, and feared her for it.
"I want to know what it would mean to go back," she said. "Not just to the boat. To that version of us. To the honesty. To being looked at. To watching you watch me without either of us pretending it is simple."
Nathan's pulse beat in his throat.
"That is not a yes."
"No. It is not a no either."
He nodded.
She touched his knee. "Do you want to go back?"
There it was. The mirror.
Nathan almost gave the answer that would make him safer in her eyes. Instead, he gave the one that made him visible.
"I want to want to," he said. "And I want to be strong enough to say no if no is true."
Marissa's eyes filled.
"That might be the most honest thing you have said to me in years."
The words hurt because they were not cruel.
Nathan put his hand over hers.
On the coffee table, his phone rested unlocked, its history open between them.
For once, neither of them reached to close it.