Page 8

Before

I ’ ve had three glasses of wine tonight, and I’m starting to feel it.

This is the first party Noel and I have thrown in close to a year. After he finished his postdoc, he got a job at a pharmaceutical company, and even though he warned me that the workload would be more than we were used to, it’s been rough.

But Noel says it’s worth it. Not just because of the money, but because he’s working on a medication that’s really important. Not just one that prevents male-pattern baldness, he’d said, although I personally think those medications are important too. (Thankfully, Noel—now in his early thirties—doesn’t need them yet.)

Anyway, it’s nice to have friends over at our house. It’s a Saturday night, and we’re young and not yet burdened with children (although Noel has been talking about the latter more and more lately). Why not spend an evening making slightly tipsy conversation with friends and strangers?

In fact, I’m going to have another drink.

I’m reaching for the bottle of rosé that’s on the table I set up with the wineglasses when my good friend Kinsey joins me and reaches for her own glass. She and I used to have lunch together at least once a week, but somehow we’ve gotten out of the habit. Noel isn’t the only one who’s been busy lately.

“Having fun?” Kinsey asks me.

“Oh yes.” I tip the wine bottle to fill the glass nearly to the brim. “Thank you for coming.”

“You’re slurring, Talia,” she giggles.

“No, I’m not!”

“You totally are.”

Am I? Oh well. The nice thing about throwing a party at your own house is you don’t have to worry about driving home.

“So.” Kinsey seizes the bottle of rosé and pours her own glass. I don’t know how many she has had, but she looks very sober. “How is your handsome husband?”

I laugh. “Busy.”

She looks pointedly at the glass of rose-tinted wine in my hand. “I guess you’re not knocked up yet like everyone else we know.”

“Oh, no.” I take a gulp of wine to emphasize the point. “Noel wants to start trying soon ... he talks about it way too much. But he barely makes it home for dinner more than a couple of times a week. I don’t want to be a single parent.”

“Wow.” Kinsey’s eyebrows shoot up. “That sounds terrible. Hopefully, it’ll calm down soon.”

As we discuss Noel, it occurs to me that I haven’t seen my husband in a while. We got separated after a few of my work friends drew me into a conversation, and he started to look bored and wandered away. And that was ... an hour ago? Where could he have gone?

“Excuse me,” I say to Kinsey. “I need to find Noel.”

My friend shoots me a concerned look, but she steps away to allow me to navigate the living room, checking to see if I missed Noel talking to somebody in a corner somewhere. But he’s not in the living room or the dining room, as it turns out. He’s not in the kitchen, either, which smells a bit like marijuana, although Noel wouldn’t have noticed that due to his lack of smell. I even knock on the bathroom door, but the voice that comes from within is female.

Where did my husband go?

Before checking upstairs, I open the kitchen door, which leads to our small backyard. The weather is quite nippy this evening, and I don’t expect anyone to be out here. The entire yard is lit only by the small bulb mounted over the back door, which makes it hard to see much. If I’d looked quickly, I might have missed Noel at the far end of the yard, standing just a little bit too close to a woman I don’t recognize.

What the hell is going on here?

Even though it’s freezing and all I’ve got on is a sleeveless blouse, I march out into the yard to intercept whatever is going on between my husband and this young woman. Strangely enough, even though there’s snow dotting the ground, I don’t feel the slightest bit cold. It’s the oddest sensation to walk out into the frigid night air yet not even so much as shiver.

Once again, I get that feeling of vertigo, where my world goes on tilt. This isn’t real, a voice in the back of my head insists.

But I ignore the voice, because this is very clearly real. I can see with my own eyes that my husband is with another woman, all alone in our backyard. They’re not touching, although who knows what would have been going on if I’d emerged from the house a minute later.

Noel raises a hand in greeting. “Hey, Talia.”

I ignore him completely and focus my attention on the mystery woman. “Who are you?” I snap at her. Up close, she is even prettier than she looked from across the yard. “I didn’t invite you.”

“I’m Arielle,” she says. “Chet invited me.”

Chet? Who the hell is Chet? We don’t know a Chet.

“Noel here keeps trying to convince me that the police are going to come soon to break up the party.” Arielle smacks my husband playfully in the arm. “You are so bad .”

I want to reach out and strangle her with my bare hands. I want to choke her until she dies, and then bury her body in the backyard. The fact that Noel is standing right here and wouldn’t go along with it is the only thing preventing me from doing it.

“Get out,” I say to Arielle.

She laughs, assuming I’m joking, although by the way Noel’s eyes widen, it’s clear he realizes it’s not a joke.

“I’m serious.” My gaze is laser focused on this girl who has been hitting on my husband. “This is my house, and I want you to get out right now.”

She blinks a few times, the smile dropping off her face. “But ... I came with Chet ... I don’t have a ride back.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Talia ...,” Noel says in a low voice.

“Get. Out. Of. My. House.” I enunciate every syllable, speaking the words around clenched teeth. “If you don’t get out right now, I really am going to call the police. It won’t just be a silly joke my husband is telling you.”

“Talia,” Noel says again in that same warning voice. He turns his attention back to Arielle, an apologetic expression on his face. “You don’t have to leave. This is—”

“No.” Arielle is backing away now. “I ... uh, I think I’ll go. If Chet can’t take me, I’ll get an Uber.”

“Good for you,” I mutter.

Arielle quickly makes her way across the backyard, stumbling awkwardly in her strappy heels. It’s only after she’s disappeared back inside the house that I turn to Noel and realize he’s gawking at me.

“What the hell was that, Talia?”

He thinks that I overreacted, although he didn’t seem to notice the way she was looking at him. She wanted him. She was ready to pounce, and she would’ve done it if I hadn’t interrupted them.

Or maybe he did notice. And he liked it.

“You know,” he says, “Chet is never going to let me hear the end of it at work tomorrow.”

Oh. I guess Chet isn’t a made-up person. “She was flirting with you. And the two of you were alone together out here.”

“So?”

“So?” I throw up my hands. “So she wanted you.”

“She didn’t ‘want’ me.”

“Of course she did!” I shake my head. “You’re really hot.”

The tiniest of smiles breaks through his grim expression. “Well, thanks. But even if that’s true, it’s not like anything was going to happen.” He takes a step toward me. “I’d never cheat on you, Talia. You know that.”

I do know that. I trust Noel. I wouldn’t have married him if I didn’t trust him. But when I saw him with that other woman, I just ... I lost it.

“I love you, Talia.” His brows knit together. “You’re the most important person in the world to me, and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. I will always be faithful to you.”

“You swear?”

“On my life.” He takes another step closer to me. “And you know it’s true, because if I ever did cheat on you, you’d probably kill me.”

I laugh at his joke, except ... well, is it a joke? Noel says he loves me, but I love him just as much. I love him so much that the thought of him ever being unfaithful to me is unbearable . If he ever did something like that ...

“Let’s go back inside.” Noel throws his arm around my shoulders. “You look like you’re freezing.”

Even though I don’t feel the cold, I crave the warmth of his body. I close my eyes, waiting for him to press his lips against mine. But he doesn’t.

“Open your eyes, Talia,” he whispers in my ear, his breath tickling my neck.

“What?”

“Open your eyes.”