Chapter 10
Ryan
My mind was completely shattered by everything Melanie had thrown at me, and it took a solid minute for the jab about her birthday to land.
Her birthday? I struggled to recall today’s date. January twelfth, which made Saturday…Melanie’s forty-first birthday. How the fuck had I managed to forget that?
My thoughts jumped to the thong, and I narrowed my gaze on it.
I hadn’t recognized it at first but then realized that it was the only item of clothing the stripper on the platform – and later, on my lap – had been wearing Saturday night.
I had no goddamned idea how it had ended up in my suitcase, but that mystery would have to be solved later.
Right now, I had to make Melanie understand that I didn’t cheat. I had to make her believe me.
She wanted a divorce. The very thought of it nearly brought me to my knees.
Even if it was just a knee-jerk reaction to the shock and anger over what she’d found, just hearing those words from her pierced my soul, leaving me bleeding out where I stood.
I couldn’t even bear to imagine that she actually meant them.
“Melanie!” I shouted, finally getting my ass in gear to chase after her.
I had just made it to the bottom of the stairs when I registered the sound of the overhead garage door opening.
I sprinted through the kitchen and flung open the service door leading to the garage, just in time to spot Melanie’s SUV as it quickly reversed out of the driveway and took off down the road.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” I roared, staring in disbelief at the taillights until they disappeared when she turned left at the corner.
I smacked the button on the wall to close the overhead door, then slammed back into the house.
My thoughts were spiraling in dozens of directions at once before one thought shot to the forefront.
Call her. Get her to calm down and come home so we could talk about this. Once I could get her to listen, everything would be OK. She’d still be hurt about the strip club, but she wouldn’t be threatening divorce, for God’s sake.
“It’s too dangerous for her to be driving like this,” I muttered, yanking my phone from my pocket and pulling up her contact.
My hands were shaking so much that it took me three tries to hit the right button, and I paced the length of the living room as I waited for her to pick up.
After three rings, her voice came through the line.
“This is Melanie. Sorry I missed you but leave me a message and I’ll call you back.”
Dammit. I exhaled harshly, then jabbed the button to call her again. It went directly to her voicemail then, making it clear that she had turned her phone off.
I left a message anyway.
“Please come home. You shouldn’t be driving when you’re so upset. Just let me explain. Please, I’m begging you, sweetness. It’s not what you think.”
I tossed the phone on the couch, then dropped down onto the cushion as my legs threatened to give out on me. I looked around the room in a daze, and then my focus landed on a vase flowers setting on the coffee table.
I leaned forward to grab the car propped up against them, sighing heavily as I saw the message from the boys.
“Fuck,” I muttered. Our sons, loving but terribly self-absorbed in the way only teenaged boys can be, had remembered her birthday and gone to the effort of ordering flowers for her, while I’d forgotten the day completely.
I dropped my head to my chest, unable to believe I’d fucked up so badly.
Releasing a deep ragged sigh, I looked around the room and as I did, my gaze sharpened. Something was different, but I couldn’t figure out quite what it was. Then it came to me.
My suitcase.
It had been sitting at the bottom of the stairs when I got home ten minutes ago. I’d had to walk around it when I went upstairs.
It was gone now, which could only mean Melanie had taken it with her.
I vaulted to my feet and took the stairs two at a time before careening through our bedroom doorway.
My chest heaved as I took in the room, which looked the same as it always did.
My eyes skittered away from the sight of that damned thong on the floor and landed on the closet door which was slightly ajar.
I forced myself to walk over to it, every beat of my heart pounding in my ears. I reached out to nudge the door open and the sight of several empty hangers on Mel’s side had me staggering back and hanging on to the door for support.
I looked over my shoulder at the bathroom door, then crossed the room on wobbly legs to see what else she had packed.
The vanity was pristine, as always, except for the bottles of shampoo and conditioner that were setting next to her sink instead of on the ledge in the shower as they normally were.
I took a quick look through the drawers and noted that her basic toiletries were gone.
The face serums that she religiously applied morning and night.
The body lotion that I loved, the one that smelled like she’d rubbed my favorite sugar cookies all over her skin.
Her makeup bag was also missing, as was some of the hair stuff she used.
Her toothbrush holder was setting empty.
All of it was gone, packed away with at least a few days’ worth of clothes, in the suitcase she’d taken with her.
I stumbled back into the bedroom and sank down onto the edge of the bed as I absorbed the shock of what had happened tonight.
She hadn’t just left in the heat of an argument. She’d packed her things and left me.
She hadn’t tossed out a demand for a divorce on a whim.
It hadn’t just slipped out in the heat of anger.
Sometime between finding that fucking thong and my arrival home, she’d decided we were finished.
She’d packed. She’d planned. She’d executed her escape, and if I hadn’t come home a little early, she would have been gone without a word.
She left me.
Melanie left me.
The sick feeling of dread that had been simmering in the pit of my stomach since Saturday night boiled over, and I swallowed hard as the bile rose up into my throat.
A jagged pain in my midsection had me almost doubling over, and I realized I was going to be sick.
I staggered for the bathroom, dropping to my knees in front of the toilet.
Since I’d only had a muffin and a protein bar all day, there wasn’t much there, but dry heaves racked my body in a seemingly never ending wave of well-deserved misery.
After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I made my way back into the bedroom on legs that felt too shaky to truly support me. My mind was racing in a dozen different directions as I tried to make sense of everything.
My gaze fell on the scrap of purple lace on the floor, and a shudder of revulsion tore through me.
How in the hell did that woman’s underwear end up in my suitcase? Now that my initial shock was wearing off, the answer became glaringly obvious.
Mitch.
“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” I seethed, patting my pockets for my phone. Realizing I’d left it on the couch, I charged down the stairs and snapped it up, glancing at the screen in the vain hope that Melanie had responded.
I pulled up Mitch’s contact, then connected the call. As soon as he answered, I tore into him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” My voice boomed as it bounced off the walls.
My questions were met with dead silence, and I dragged in a ragged breath. “Why? Why the hell would you put that thong in my fucking suitcase?”
“Oh, shit,” Mitch said, and had the balls to laugh. “I forgot all about that.”
“You forgot,” I echoed in disbelief. “Melanie found it, Mitch. She thinks I cheated on her, and she left me. My wife left me,” I snarled.
“Damn, man, I’m sorry. That Tangie chick couldn’t find it yesterday morning and had to take off commando. I found it right after she left. I figured you would see it when you unpacked and we’d get a laugh.”
“Melanie left me,” I repeated, working hard to keep my voice from breaking.
“Look, I’ll call her and explain that it was just a joke. She’ll get pissed at me, as usual, and you’ll be off the hook.”
I dropped my chin to my chest in utter disbelief. He couldn’t possibly be that fucking clueless.
“No, don’t call her,” I demanded. I didn’t trust him not to make things worse, if that were even possible. “I’ll explain it myself and beg her to forgive me for being friends with a stupid, motherfucking asshole.”
With that, I ended the call and flopped back down onto the couch. I ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath, trying to control the anger surging through my veins.
Once I’d talked myself off the ledge, I picked up the phone and tried to ring Melanie again. It immediately went to voicemail again. I hesitated for a second, then reluctantly scrolled through my contacts to find Jen’s name.
Odds were that Mel had gone to stay with her and Mark. Even if she hadn’t, she had likely already called Jen to fill her in on the implosion of our marriage.
Jen answered after two rings, and I braced myself for the barrage of insults I was sure would be coming my way.
“Ryan.” Her greeting was brusque, but nothing like what I’d feared.
“Uh, have you talked to Mel?” I wanted to smack myself for my uncharacteristic hesitancy, but I was in unchartered territory here. I’d never had to try to track down a wayward wife before.
“Not since earlier this afternoon,” she said slowly, her voice cool. “Why?”
“She…we, uh, we had an argument, and she…left. I was hoping she had gone to your place.”
“No, she’s not here, but what do you mean, she left? Like, she needed to calm down so she went for a drive?” Jen’s voice rose half an octave as her concern became evident.
“No,” I admitted quietly. “She packed a few things and left. She…,” I stopped and swallowed around the tightness in my throat. “She thinks I cheated on her.”
Jen’s gasp was audible through the phone, and I hastened to reassure her.
“I didn’t. I swear it, but she doesn’t believe me.
I talked to Mitch, and he hooked up with a woman and thought it would be funny to stick her underwear in my suitcase.
Mel found it,” I admitted quietly. “I need to explain what happened, but she’s not answering her phone.
I hate the idea of her driving when she’s so upset. I’m worried sick about her.”
Jen’s voice was positively frigid as she informed me that she would call to check on her. “You leave her the hell alone until she’s ready to talk to you. Oh, and tell Mitch the Bitch I’m gonna shoot him out of a cannon, ass first.”
With that threat, she hung up on me.
Unable to sit still, I began pacing the living room. My fists clenched as I thought of Mitch’s involvement in this clusterfuck.
“I forgot.”
“It was just a joke.”
I thought back to Saturday night and everything that happened. How he had twisted the truth and thrown shade at Melanie.
“It’s not an actual strip club. It’s a live music venue that happens to have topless dancers because it’s Vegas, man. It’s not gonna kill you, just this once. It’s not like your wife will ever know.”
How had he purposefully done something he knew I wouldn’t want, something that had the potential to hurt my wife so deeply?
“I bought you a lap dance to chill you the fuck out. Not exactly the crime of the century, dude. Most men would have been grateful.”
I thought about our years of friendship, almost three decades of laughs, and fun, and memories. We’d shared some of life’s biggest ups and downs, from marriages to divorces, Garrett’s birth, and sadly, the deaths of my mom, my dad, and Grady.
We’d been through it all together, so how the hell could he do something so thoughtless that had the potential to destroy my life?
I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, and ironically, the one person I wanted to confide in was the woman he’d driven away. I wanted to talk to Melanie about it, knowing she would understand and help me work through my conflicting emotions.
I strode into the kitchen, wanting a drink to deal with this shit.
I stopped short at the sight of the flowers I’d bought on the way home.
I’d set the vase in the middle of the table before I’d headed upstairs in search of my wife.
Cursing under my breath, I reached into the recesses of the cabinet above the refrigerator to grab the bottle of Maker’s Mark that I always kept on hand.
It had been my dad’s favorite, and had, in fact, been the first drink he’d bought for me in a bar when I’d come of legal age.
Grady and Mitch had been there, too, having both turned twenty-one a few months before I had.
I poured a generous splash of the bourbon, then took the glass and the bottle back into the living room.
I settled in on the couch, sipping it and topping off my glass several times before my nerves settled.
I kept an eye on my phone, hoping against hope that Mel, or even Jen or Mark, would reach out to me.
When the phone finally chimed with a text notification, I nearly dropped my glass in my haste to sit up and reach for it.
Jen: She’s safe. I told her what you said about Mitch, but she doesn’t believe you and I don’t blame her. You left out the part about the strip club and the fucking lap dance! What the hell, Ryan? If Mark doesn’t kick your ass, I will.
I dropped my head onto the back of the couch in defeat, then shot back a reply.
Me: I know I fucked up, but I didn’t cheat. I just need her to listen to me so I can make things right. Where is she?
I was barely breathing as I waited for Jen’s response, then when it came, what little air there was left my lungs in a rush.
Jen: She doesn’t want me to tell you that and she doesn’t want to talk to you. She’ll contact you when she’s ready.
I stared at the phone until my vision blurred, and when I blinked, a tear rolled down my cheek. I swiped it away, but it was followed by another, and another, and then another until my shoulders were heaving as I sobbed.
What the hell have I done?