Page 49 of Good Days Bad Days

Love. I almost laugh—not because I haven’t felt anything for Cameron, but because it’s difficult to understand how Ian could imagine love developing so quickly.

It took me a year and a half to say “I love you” to Ian and to let him meet Olivia.

Love is a matter of substance. It takes great effort and time to build and needs a strong foundation.

It requires constant tending. It’s not made of sticks or straw.

I don’t want a house that can easily be blown down.

“I could ask you the same question about your friend.” I stare into his eyes, coming closer to confronting him than I have since the night I found those messages.

“Hell no,” he says, pushing his phone toward me across the table, and I shove it away.

I already did a full deep dive into his phone before I left for Wisconsin, and anything I’d see now would be a curated version of the past month, not the reality.

“You can look through anything you want anytime you want. The passcode is your birthday. It was one stupid conversation.”

We are having the confrontation. Here. In a room full of strangers sitting nearby. My mouth is dry, and I gulp down half of my newly refreshed drink.

“It was one conversation that could’ve ruined everything.” I lower my voice to emphasize the seriousness of the situation that could have unfolded if that woman had taken screenshots. I insisted he unsend every message and block her, not only out of jealousy but also for damage control.

“I know. It all happened so fast. I don’t even know why I responded.”

“Well—why did you?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m so happy with you, Charlie, with our life.”

“Clearly not totally happy. If there was nothing wrong—why would you talk to her that way?” Then I ask the most painful question of all. “Am I not enough for you?”

“You’re more than enough. It’s about me. I started therapy. I’m completely dedicated to fixing things—” I interrupt him with another question that’s been rolling around in my mind, brushing past the revelation of his new foray into therapy.

“But if you could flirt with a woman on the internet, let her talk to you like . . . that . . .” I lower my voice again as I reference the sexually explicit texts I read in horror while sitting on our bed as he showered in the other room.

I can’t erase those words from my mind—the shock of seeing his eager responses and the pain of seeing him react to images sent by a woman whose body hasn’t changed with age or from carrying a life inside of her. “What about in person?”

“Never, Charlie. I never met her or anyone else in person, and I never want to.”

Ian leans across the table to touch me. He sounds so sincere, and until this situation, I never questioned his loyalty.

I thought Ian was disgusted by women who flirted with married men.

Even when he was a single dad with his DMs full of messages from horny fans, he said he felt violated by their propositions.

He claimed my insistence on taking things slow was a huge turn-on. But now, I don’t know what to think.

I glance around the room and out the window and then back at Ian. “Can we not do this here?”

He swallows a bite of steak and washes it down with his drink, wipes his mouth, and drops the cloth napkin in his lap.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course. I wanted tonight to be special, a new start.” His jaw clenches, hand curled tight on the table.

“I’m sorry. It’s just—I’ve been going crazy since you left and stopped answering my calls.

And then when Olivia and I got here and I saw you with that guy . . . I nearly lost my mind.”

Ian is not a man who easily gets jealous.

Women are drawn to Ian and his burly, muscley, “I can fix anything with my hammer” quiet strength.

Fame has brought unwanted attention my direction, too.

But my husband has always brushed it away with a long kiss, a hand on the waist as a reminder that we belong to each other.

But tonight, I’m seeing jealous Ian. I shouldn’t like seeing this side of my husband, I shouldn’t find satisfaction in knowing that I could move on, that he could lose me and it’d be his doing.

Cam isn’t some pawn in our marital conflict, and I wasn’t trying to beckon the green-eyed monster, but now that it’s here, I don’t feel as alone in my struggle.

I snake my arm through the landscape of plates and glasses and place my ringless hand over his coiled fist. He clasps it tightly as though he might miss the opportunity if he doesn’t act fast.

“Can I try to fix this? Please?” he asks, the intensity of his gaze fading the rest of the room to a blurry haze.

His calloused fingers are familiar and reassuring, like his smile when we first sat down and his caress on my lower back as we entered the resort.

My body hasn’t forgotten how to trust him.

I want to believe it’s this easy of a fix, that all I need to do is choose to forgive, trust, start over, let him do the work, and stop running away.

I don’t have the right words to say that mean “yes” and also “it’ll take time,” but he somehow knows when I bite my lip to hold back the tears that will come if I say too much.

He nods, his signature grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. He places a lingering kiss on my hand, and I let him, which is as much of an answer as I can muster right now.

Just then, Caleb appears out of nowhere, his squeaky, hyper voice asking about desserts, cutting our conversation short.

But we’ve said enough to know that we’re going to take on a new rehab project: our marriage.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell Cam we’re meant to be friends but nothing else.

I’ll let Olivia think she’s properly “trapped” us. And then I’ll let Ian meet my mom.

Ian rejects Caleb’s dessert offer and asks for the check, explaining that he’s already planned our next stop. After he excuses himself for a bathroom break, I lean back and finish the last bit of my drink.

The calming endorphins from Ian’s touch and the buzz from the martinis mingle together and make it like nothing bad ever happened in my marriage and never could in the future.

It’s comforting, this attempt at forgiveness, at moving on.

I get to reclaim my life, my family, my stability.

It’s what I always imagined it’d be like to have my dad show up on the doorstep of the foster home with Mom sitting in our sky-blue Subaru parked on the street, telling me the house is clean and they want me to come home.

I sit in the bliss. I must look like a fool, smiling dreamily. Then Ian’s phone vibrates on the table, face down where he’d left it earlier as an offering. The sparkly daze of perfection evaporates, and a warning siren starts a low squeal in my ears.

I could flip it over. I could look. He said I could. But do I want to? What if I see something incriminating? What if all my renewed faith falls apart as quickly as it was restored?

The phone buzzes again and then once more. Those are definitely text messages.

Shit.

The ringing in my head crescendos. The phone, in its industrial-strength black case, calls to me. He’ll be back in a second. He’ll be able to delete anything he doesn’t want me to see. He could lie to keep me locked into this relationship, to keep me, period.

I turn over the phone and tap the screen. A line of notifications shows up, and I type in the password.

The first message is from a number I don’t recognize.

Several messages appear from today. They look as though they’re part of an ongoing conversation, though none of the previous texts are intact.

He must have deleted them. Red flags flash in front of my eyes as I read the messages one at a time, starting at the top of the conversation box.

TBB: You’re asking her tonight? Fill me in asap.

Hell no. Who is this? I pull the phone closer. TBB? I think through all the possible names that might match the initials but come up with nothing. As I scroll up it looks like the next text is from an hour ago, checking in with no reply. And another two below that make my head spin.

TBB: Did she sign the papers?

TBB: It has to happen tonight. I can’t stress this enough.

Papers. My head spins. Divorce papers? Ian clearly wasn’t going to ask for a divorce tonight, but do these texts mean he was telling some girl he’s leaving me—just like those scummy cliché cheaters always do while trying to keep two women on the line?

I will not be one of those women.

I tap the reply box on the screen and quickly type out a message as Ian—giving the girl on the other end a dose of truth that might save her from falling for any further lies.

“Ian”: I’m on a date with my wife right now.

Ian walks across the dining room, rubbing his hands together like he always does after washing them.

I hold my breath, waiting as bubbles appear, disappear, and reappear again.

He’s only a few steps away when a sixtysomething woman with dyed brown hair and a sparkling top stops him and asks for a selfie.

He smiles, always so gracious with fans.

He urges me over to join as a line of text appears.

TBB: Good idea. Soften her up. Her dad too. Don’t get distracted, though. Crews will be there to start shooting on Wednesday. Don’t screw this up.

I read it twice quickly and then once slowly before grabbing my purse, wrap, and both phones, slapping his into the palm of his outstretched hand as I walk out of the restaurant without stopping for a picture or worrying about what anyone might think.

The only thing running through my mind is the image of that last text, the one that stole any remaining hope I had for trusting my husband, any assurance that we could go back to the way things were.

I know who’s texting my husband and it’s worse than some floozie on social media.

TBB. The Big Boss. Our boss. The boss of all HFN—Alex McNamara.