7
Orion
Aweek had passed since doing the stupidest thing I could have ever done by going back to Faded Sins.
Whitney sat at the kitchen table sorting through the mail, while I watched her act like nothing was wrong, making my skin crawl. Just the idea of going into that club should be enough to send her running for the hills, but that meant having to tell her I’d not only gone once, but twice.
The second time involved me talking to one of the dancers, letting him proposition me.
Even if I’d left before anything could happen, guilt still weighed heavy in my gut.
Every time Whitney looked at me with her oh so innocent blue eyes, I wanted to crack.
To tell her about my dishonesty and how I didn’t deserve her. She deserved so much better than me.
“Hey, Hon? Do you know what this charge is?”
My heart slammed into my chest because I’d been stupid enough to use our card that first night at the club. No doubt it would show in our statements. I had no idea what it showed up as.
Looking over her shoulder, there was a charge for twenty-five dollars at Exquisite Entertainment.
At least the club was smart and didn’t actually put its name on its bank.
It probably helped a lot of people who were trying to be low-key when visiting such an establishment.
I could come up with any excuse for what it was, and, knowing Whitney, she’d buy it.
She’d never had a reason to doubt me before now.
“I went to an arcade with Jayden.”
It was a flimsy lie. She’d see the date,she might have put two and two together.
“Oh, okay. I guess that makes sense.”
A sense of relief washed over me, but it still didn’t completely assuage my guilt.
My gut churned with the lie, threatening to make me revisit my lunch in the most unflattering way possible.
A sheen of sweat coated my back—if Whitney were to only look up at me, she’d know I was lying.
Then again, she had been so damn checked out lately that maybe she wouldn’t notice at all.
She folded the statements, put them back in the envelopes, storing them in her rolltop desk that we kept in the living room.
When we’d first gotten married, she’d told me this grand story about how her grandmother had this old roll-top desk and how it had always been her dream to own one.
We’d gone to a farmer’s market together one weekend, and there, a woodworker had one on display.
Whitney had “ooh’d” and “awe’d” over the damn thing to the point I couldn’t walk away from it without making her day.
It was much more than we could afford at the time.
Buying the desk meant we had to cut back, but it was worth the sacrifice to see the smile that spread across her face when we loaded the thing into the bed of my truck.
There were... a lot of good memories.
I couldn’t figure out why I was so intent on throwing it all in the trash lately. All I needed to do was open my mouth, tell Whitney that maybe parenthood wasn’t for me, but I knew it would break her heart. Not that anything I was doing was any better. That betrayal was so much worse.
I went to the bathroom, locking the door behind me.
It was like trying to breathe through a straw—that’s how hard it was to catch my breath.
When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize the man looking back at me.
He had my hair, eyes, nose, and the stubble that grew in like a toxic weed no matter how much I shaved it... but... he wasn’t me.
There was a new box of unopened pregnancy tests sitting on the counter. My hand shook as I picked it up to examine them. At some point she had to get tired of this song and dance. The nights of endless tears would cause both of us to shatter. I was already a broken mess because I was ruining her.
Against my better judgment, I threw the box at the wall, watching as the cardboard ripped and the sticks went flying across the tile floor. I stared in horror because it was loud and there was no way I could explain what the hell I’d just done.
A knock on the door made my heart race.
“Orion? Is everything okay?”
I cleared my throat, leaning down to start picking up the sticks. There was no way to save the box, but I could at least do my best to put things back together. It was a strange metaphor for where our lives were at. Torn at the seams, barely being put back together with lies and deceit.
“Yeah. Everything is fine.” Shit. I’d been in a relationship with Whitney long enough to know she’d never buy ‘fine.’ Most women knew that was a sign of trouble,
The door handle jiggled—sweat broke out on my back. It was something small and stupid, but we never locked the door on each other. There was no need to when we knew each other inside and out.
A locked door meant you were hiding something.
“Orion?” Her voice was smaller now. I didn’t have it in me to listen to her get upset again today. I shoved the broken box of pregnancy tests into one of the drawers of the vanity before opening the door to see her standing there, looking so damn unsure of herself.
“Hey, babe.”
Her smile was weak. I didn’t like the look of it. I wanted the real thing, so I did the only thing I could think of to bring one out of her. It all felt forced and made my stomach turn just a little as I leaned down to place a kiss on her lips.
She sighed, grabbing at the front of my shirt, forcing me closer so she could run her tongue along the seam of my lips. Letting her in was easy. It had always been easy. But maybe that was why we were in the mess we created, because I couldn’t tell her no. Never no.
When she pulled back, there was that true smile I’d been looking for. It spread across her face, making little butterflies dance in my gut, like we were silly teenagers all over again. Despite everything, I loved this woman at one time. The question was whether I was still in love with her.
As she took my hand, leading me to our bedroom, I should have stopped it.
I should have told her that my heart just wasn’t in this anymore.
As she pulled her shirt over her head to expose her breasts to the cool breeze of the room, she never wore a bra at home—I should have told her this was a terrible idea.
We’ve already established that I’m a terrible person, and I let her do what she wanted to do.
Anything to keep that smile on her face for just a little longer.
“What do you think of these towels?”
I shook my head because I should have been paying attention to what Whitney was saying, but I couldn’t focus.
Going shopping after our earlier events had been her idea.
All I wanted to do was go back to the garage and work on Mr. George’s car, or even go back to Faded Sins.
The latter was the last thing I should be doing.
I’d fucked my wife like a good husband. I shouldn’t be thinking about tiny, gorgeous dancers who flirted without abandon.
My wrist still tingled when I thought about where he’d touched me. I’d wanted to take him up on his offer to go somewhere more private to talk, but I’d chickened out. I knew there was no going back if I crossed that line.
Maybe I’d already crossed it. The guilt that tickled at the back of my mind whenever I looked at Whitney now said I had. Just thinking about it was as bad as actually doing it.
“Orion?”
Jesus, fuck. I needed to get out of my own head and focus on Whitney.
“Yeah, sorry. The towels are nice.”
She sighed, putting them back on the shelf. “You hate them, don’t you?”
This was why I hated shopping with her. I always had. “I don’t hate them. If you like them, then we should get them.”
Whitney cast me a glare before placing her hands on her hips. “Listen here, you live in our house as well. You get input. It’s not all about what I like. I feel like we’ve been married for years. I still don’t even know what your favorite color is.”
“It’s green.”
Wrong answer. She threw her hands up in the air, marching over to another part of the store to look at dishes. We didn’t need new ones. The ones we had, her grandmother had gifted us as a wedding present, and while I was afraid of breaking one all the damn time, there was nothing wrong with them.
“Why are you looking at dishes now? There’s nothing wrong with what we have.”
Her laugh was humorless. “Ladies and gentlemen, he finally has an opinion.” She went to stomp away from me again, but I stopped her by grabbing her wrist.
“What the hell is this all about? You’re in a bad mood all of a sudden.”
Whitney rolled her eyes before shaking her arm out of my grasp. “What’s up with you? You’re so damn checked out all the time lately. Come on, Orion. Earlier was the first time we’ve had sex in weeks. It’s like you don’t want to touch me anymore.”
I reared back because, okay, she’d locked in on something that I thought I’d hidden a little better than I had.
Not that I didn’t want to touch her. Whitney was one of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen.
When we first met, it was impossible to keep my hands off her.
I just didn’t want to have kids with her.
My desire to keep my secret a secret was what made it hard for me to desire her as of late.
“Stop that. I adore you. You know that.”
“Do I?” Her eyes welled with tears. I frantically looked around us. People were starting to look and having all that attention on us, yeah, that wasn’t great. No one wanted to be the guy who made his wife cry in public.
Instead of continuing to stand there like an idiot, I pulled Whitney into a hug, rubbing her back in slow circles, telling her over and over again that it was going to be okay.
This was part of the reason we were having so many problems because nothing was going to be okay if I couldn’t open up and tell her what was wrong.
It only took a few moments for her to calm down, wrapping her arms around my waist. For a moment, it felt like old times all over again. Like we were back in high school, standing in the hallways between classes when we couldn’t wait to get even the smallest tastes of each other.
I kissed the top of her head, letting the minty smell of her shampoo spread familiarity through my limbs. When I closed my eyes, I could almost see a younger and happier us. Not these people who were gawked at in the middle of a HomeGoods.
In the end, Whitney went back and got the towels she had been looking at. It was another item we didn’t really need, but if it made her happy, I would do it for her. The woman deserved all the happiness in the world. One day she’d find someone better than me to give it to her.