Chapter 5 #3
She nodded quickly, forcing a smile. “Yeah,” she lied. “I’m fine.”
Afterward, Jake drifted off quickly beside her, one arm slung lazily across her stomach, his breathing deep and even. The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the ceiling fan and the distant rustle of night air through the trees outside their window.
Kylee laid wide awake, staring at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. Her body was still warm from the sex skin flushed, hair tousled, legs tangled in the sheets but her chest felt hollow.
What had just happened wasn’t passion. It was muscle memory. Familiar. Safe. Empty.
She turned her head slightly, looking at Jake in the dim light. He looked peaceful. Satisfied. Like a man who believed he still knew every part of her. She blinked back the sting in her eyes. The ache between her legs wasn’t for him. It was Rio who haunted her.
Rio, with his wild eyes and chaotic energy. Rio, who made her feel like a woman instead of just a mother, a wife, a placeholder in her own life.
What scared her most wasn’t that she thought of him during sex with her husband. It was how easy it had been. How right it had felt to surrender to the fantasy.
She curled onto her side, facing away from Jake, pulling the blanket to her chest like it could shield her from the guilt building in her ribcage. Maybe she hadn’t physically cheated. But her heart had cracked open. And Rio Riot was still standing inside it.
A week had passed, and Kylee had slipped back into the rhythm of her routine like nothing ever happened. Coffee brewed before sunrise.
Jake kissed her on the cheek on his way out, briefcase in one hand and coffee in the other.
“Have a good one,” he called, already halfway out the door.
“You too,” Kylee replied, voice steady, smile in place.
The door shut behind him. Silence fell.
She finally exhaled.
Turning toward the sink, she reached for her own cup of coffee when her phone buzzed on the counter. Just one notification. Instagram. A DM.
Kylee glanced at the screen. Then froze.
Rio Riot: Kylee, my beautiful Idaho. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since New Orleans. Please call me. 897-967-5621.
Her breath caught. Her hand went numb. The phone slipped from her fingers and hit the tile with a dull clatter.
She stared at it like it had just whispered a secret she wasn’t supposed to hear.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
Without thinking, she snatched it back up and dialed the one person who would understand.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she muttered into the phone.
Kelly answered, groggy. “What’s wrong? You okay, it's 7am?”
Kylee’s voice was a whisper, as if the walls had ears.
“Kelly... he messaged me.”
There was a beat of silence. “Wait, who?”
“You know who! Rio! He just... sent me his number. He wants me to call him.”
Kelly squealed on the other end. “Shut… Up…What does it mean!?”
Kylee sank into a chair, clutching her coffee like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. “He called me his beautiful Idaho. Kelly... I can’t do this. But I want to.”
Kelly didn’t hesitate. “Girl, Call him. At least hear what he has to say.”
Kylee looked down at the message again, her finger hovering over the number. Her heart said yes. Her reality still screamed no.
And yet... she hadn’t deleted it.
Kylee didn’t call him. Not that morning. Not that afternoon. But she didn’t delete the message either. Instead, she moved through the day in a daze washing dishes, folding laundry, helping with homework while Rio’s words echoed like a heartbeat in the back of her mind.
My beautiful Idaho
She tried to shake it off. Tried to be present.
Jake came home later than usual, full of work stories and weekend plans. He kissed her on the forehead, poured a glass of wine, and asked if she wanted to watch a movie.
She smiled. Nodded. Said yes.
But all she could see was Rio’s face in the flicker of the screen.
When she climbed into bed that night beside Jake, the message still pulsed like a secret beneath her skin.
Every time he turned toward her, she stiffened, unsure if it was guilt she felt or the burn of longing for someone else.
She couldn’t sleep. Not even with Jake’s breath steady beside her. The room was dark. Quiet.
Kylee slipped out of bed and padded to the kitchen, barefoot, the cold tile grounding her. She stared out the window into the night, phone clutched in her palm.
She opened the message again. Reread it for the tenth time. A thousand images from New Orleans flashed through her mind, his eyes that voice, the tension, the almost-kiss.
Was it real?
Was he serious?
What did he want now?
She thought of her kids. Her marriage. Idaho. Her life before that trip.
Before him.
But the thought that someone like Rio Riot remembered her… wanted her… had been thinking about her? That stirred something too big to ignore.
She locked her phone and pressed it to her chest. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. But the thought of never knowing what could’ve been? That might haunt her more.
It was nearly midnight when Kylee found herself sitting at the edge of her bed, the glow of her phone casting soft light across her face. Jake was asleep beside her, one arm draped lazily over a pillow. His breathing was steady, peaceful… clueless.
She stared at the message again.
Kylee, my beautiful Idaho. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since New Orleans. Please call me. 897-967-5621.
Her thumb hovered over the number, then retreated.
She opened a blank message, then closed it.
Opened it again.
The quiet hum of the ceiling fan filled the room like static. Her heart was louder. Finally, she started to type.
Rio… I….
She paused. Deleted it. Tried again.
I haven’t stopped thinking about you either.
Her chest tightened. Her skin flushed warm.
She stared at the blinking cursor as if it held the answer.
Was this wrong?
Jake had cheated first.
She hadn’t even touched Rio. But God… she wanted to. She backspaced the entire message.
She set the phone down on the nightstand. Picked it back up. Her pulse thudded between her thighs at the memory of his voice, the way his hand had brushed her lower back, the way he’d looked at her like she was the only woman in the room.
Kylee typed again:
What are you doing right now?
She stared at it.
And stared.
Her finger hovered over “send.”
Then she locked the phone and dropped it face-down.
She couldn’t do it. Not yet.
But the seed was planted. And it was growing fast.
She laid back in bed, staring at the ceiling, the weight of her choices pressing into her chest. She didn’t reply.
Kylee couldn’t sleep. She tossed, turned, fluffed her pillow, turned it over, and pulled the sheets tighter across her chest. Jake was still snoring softly beside her, blissfully unaware of the storm unraveling just inches away.
She reached for her phone again. This time, she didn’t open the message. She opened the search bar instead.
Rio Riot.
Her breath caught as his name filled the screen. Pictures flooded in stage shots, interviews, paparazzi pictures. But the ones that stopped her cold were the ones that weren’t staged. Him laughing with a drink in his hand. Him shirtless on a balcony in Italy.
Him playing guitar barefoot in a recording studio.
His tattoos. His smirk. His damn jawline.
She swallowed, her body slowly heating as she scrolled deeper. It felt dangerous, indulgent. Like she’d just opened a door she wouldn’t be able to close again.
She zoomed in on a photo of him leaning against a mic stand, sweat glistening on his chest, his mouth parted like he’d just said her name.
Her thumb hovered above it like she could touch him through the screen. At some point, sleep finally claimed her but not gently.
In her dream, they were back in New Orleans.
The lights were low, the air thick with music and desire. Rio stood behind her, his hands sliding slowly around her waist, mouth at her ear.
“You came back to me,” he whispered, his voice liquid velvet. “I knew you would.”
She turned, his body pressing into hers, their mouths so close it hurt. He kissed her finally, deeply and she melted. There was no guilt in the dream, no husband, no kids, and no real life.
Just them, and heat, and the raw ache of everything they hadn’t done that weekend.
His hands roamed her bare back as he laid her down in silk sheets.
He worshipped her slowly, whispering her name between kisses like a secret.
Her body responded with abandon. She gasped his name as he slid inside her, slow and thick, filling the space she'd kept locked up for too long. It was perfect. Too perfect.
She came hard in the dream, Rio’s lips tangled in her moan, her fingers gripping his hair. But as always… reality crept back in like a cold breeze.
Kylee woke with a start, breathless, her thighs clenched and slick with arousal. The room was still dark, but her body was on fire.
She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling, heart pounding. She’d dreamed of Rio. And it felt better than anything Jake had given her in years.
The next day the sun was hot over the school field, but the bleachers were packed.
Moms with messy buns, oversized sunglasses, and tumblers of iced coffee filled the stands with chatter.
Kylee sat alone near the middle, her oversized hoodie pulled over a tank top and leggings, trying to focus on Jake Jr. and the game in front of her.
Jake had texted her just before kickoff “Sorry babe, running late in surgery. Tell our boy I’m proud of him.”
She sighed and locked the phone without replying.
“Hey Kylee!”
She turned to see Cassie, one of the football moms, grinning as she climbed a few steps up to sit beside her. Taylor followed right behind, nursing a Diet Coke in a stainless tumbler.
Cassie leaned in, smirking. “Where’s your hot husband today? He’s like the team's eye candy.”
Taylor snorted. “Seriously, if I were married to a doctor with arms like that, I’d be glued to him 24/7.”