Chapter 3 The Window #3
But I lied when I told Summer where I was.
And when she walked in and gave me the chance to tell the truth, I called it a strategy session and watched her sit down.
Because standing up, taking her home, or admitting how the table looked would have meant acknowledging there was something to explain.
I go back to my car and sit behind the wheel without starting it.
Something has been wrong between us for weeks.
Longer than weeks.
Summer has gotten quieter. She doesn’t ask about my day unless I bring it up. On the couch, her hand no longer finds mine without either of us thinking about it first.
I’ve noticed every bit of it.
I just kept waiting for it to fix itself.
Tonight, I handed her the exact picture she has probably been trying not to imagine and told myself it was harmless because I could explain every piece.
I can’t open the slide deck after that.
Calloway’s changes can wait until morning. I’ll be at my desk by six and have it done before he wakes up.
I start the car.
I don’t drive home right away.
I circle downtown with the radio off, building and rebuilding the explanation I’ll give Summer.
It was work.
Nothing happened.
Cheyenne is a colleague.
Every version sounds worse than the one before it.
By the time I pull into the driveway, most of the lights are off.
Summer
I hear the front door open.
His keys land in the dish. His shoes cross the hallway.
I keep my hands in the sink.
“What the fuck was that, Colt?”
He stops behind me.
“Summer.”
“You told me you were at the office.”
I shut off the water and turn around.
“You said you were grinding through it. You told me to eat without you. Then I walked past our restaurant and found you sitting across from her with wine and a candle between you.”
His face tightens.
“I know how it looked.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not trying to—”
“Don’t tell me how it looked.” My voice breaks, and I hate that it does. “Tell me why you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
The answer comes too quickly.
Then he sees my face and stops.
That pause hurts more than the words. I watch him go back through the night, looking for a version he can defend.
“Cheyenne suggested dinner,” he says. “We were still working at six. Neither of us had eaten.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I know.” He drags a hand over his mouth. “I said the office because that’s where we were when I texted you. I didn’t think about it.”
“You knew you were leaving.”
“Yes.”
The word hangs there.
He looks down for a second.
“Yes. I knew.”
Something inside me drops.
“You said, ‘Eat without me.’”
“Because I didn’t want you waiting.”
“I was waiting.”
“I know that now.”
“No, Colt. You knew then. You knew I was home. You knew I’d probably made dinner. You just didn’t want to explain where you were going.”
He takes a step toward me.
I step back.
He notices.
“Summer, nothing happened.”
“You lied before anything even had the chance to happen.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”
“It was work.” His voice rises, then softens immediately. “It was Calloway and the term sheet and a deadline we’ve been buried under for a month. We went somewhere close, had dinner, and kept talking. That’s all.”
“At The Butcher Block.”
His jaw shifts.
“She picked it.”
“And the wine?”
“We ordered wine.”
“The candle?”
“It was already on the table.”
“Her hand on yours?”
He goes still.
Only for a second.
But I see it.
“What?”
“I saw her touch you.”
“She reached across the table. It wasn’t anything.”
“She was leaning toward you like there wasn’t another person in the room.”
“She listens like that.”
“And you were laughing.”
He stares at me, confused now, as though that is the one accusation he can’t prepare for.
“Yes. I laughed.”
“Not with me.”
The words come out so quietly that I almost wish I could pull them back.
His face changes.
“Summer.”
“I haven’t seen you laugh like that in months.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes.
So I keep going, because now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.
“You come home and sit across from me with your phone in your hand. I ask about your day and get three words. I make dinner and watch you answer emails between bites. But tonight you were leaning across a table, telling her stories and laughing like you had nowhere else to be.”
His eyes drop.
“You looked happy.”
“I am happy with you Summer, I love you. I'm with you.”
“Then why do I never get that version of you anymore?”
The kitchen goes silent.
He looks exhausted. Not angry. Not caught.
Worse.
He looks like a man who genuinely doesn’t know the answer.
He takes another step, slower this time.
“I love you.”
I fold my arms over myself.
“There is nothing going on with Cheyenne. I swear to you. I handled tonight badly. I should’ve told you we were leaving the office. I should’ve called. I should’ve seen how that table would look.”
“How it would look,” I repeat.
“How it would feel,” he corrects quickly. “I should’ve thought about how it would feel to you.”
It is exactly the right thing to say.
That scares me more than if he had said the wrong thing.
He moves closer, stopping before he reaches me.
“You are my wife. You are the person I come home to. There is no version of my life where I choose her over you.”
I want to believe him so badly it makes me feel sick.
Because every piece of his explanation fits if I turn it the right way.
The deadline is real. I know that.
The candle could have meant nothing.
The wine could have been two coworkers at the end of a long week.
Cheyenne could touch everyone when she talks. She could lean in because that’s simply how she listens.
Maybe I saw a mirror across that table because I was already afraid there would be one.
Maybe I built the whole thing from distance and candlelight and a marriage I no longer know how to read.
Or maybe I have become so desperate to keep him that I will accept any version of the truth that lets me stay.
“Okay,” I say.
Relief moves through his entire body.
“Okay?”
“I’m tired.”
He reaches for me.
I step out of the way.
His hand falls.
“I’m going to bed.”
I walk past him and start up the stairs with his explanation pressed against my chest, held there like something fragile.
Something I have decided not to examine too closely.
By the time I reach the bedroom, I almost believe him.
By the time he falls asleep beside me, I almost believe myself.
I’m almost asleep when Colt rolls onto his back and makes a sound.
Not a word at first. Just something loose and shapeless, the kind of noise people make when they’re too far under to know they’re making it.
Then his mouth forms a name.
“Cheyenne.”
My eyes open.
He’s flat on his back, one arm above his head, mouth parted. Completely asleep.
There’s nothing for him to manage now. No deal. No Calloway. No wife beside him whose face he has to read. He isn’t choosing his words or deciding what to keep hidden.
And still, somehow, he finds her.
There were years when he found me.
He would reach across the bed in his sleep and pull me against him without waking. His hand would settle on my stomach or his face would press into the back of my neck, his body looking for mine before his mind knew it was lonely.
That used to be my place.
Now I lie beside him and listen to him breathe while another woman’s name hangs in the dark between us.
She’s made it somewhere I can’t follow. Into the part of him that doesn’t think before it speaks. The part that used to reach for me without being asked.
He doesn’t even know he brought her to bed with us.
I turn toward the wall and pull the blanket up to my chin.
I don’t cry.
I don’t wake him just to watch the panic cross his face before he reaches for an explanation. I already know what he’ll say.
It was only a dream.
It doesn’t mean anything.
Maybe it doesn’t.
But somewhere inside me, something I have kept open for Colt through every missed dinner, every unanswered message, every night he came home carrying pieces of a life that no longer included me, finally closes.
Quietly.
No slammed door. No breaking glass.
Just the soft click of a lock sliding into place.
I’m not going to tell him what he said.
But I will never forget it.