Page 18 of Happy Wife

I looked away, trying to fight what felt like a gravitational pull toward him. But when I looked back up at him, his face bloomed with a half smile and he said, “Can I take you to dinner?” And then, “To thank you for scraping Mia off the bathroom floor?”

“Is that the going rate for babysitting these days?”

“I got divorced last year.”

“I remember you saying.”

“So…I don’t know how this is supposed to go.”

“Thanking someone?”

“Asking a beautiful woman on a date.”

My stomach fluttered.

Is this seriously happening?

“I will skip the part where I ask if you hit on all the swim coaches here,” I said.

“You’ve got me. I do. But no hard feelings if you’re not interested. Patrick turned me down last week and I was okay with it. He’s a little hairy for my taste anyway.”

“I’m not sure if that makes you funny or indiscriminate in your dating life.” I smiled.

There was a charming hint of vulnerability in his blue eyes. “What do you think?”

“I thought lawyers weren’t supposed to ask questions they didn’t know the answer to?”

“It’s a rookie move,” he said. From the way he was smiling, I could tell he was pretty confident in my answer. “But I am banking on my dazzling wit to win you over.”

I couldn’t think of a time I’d been asked on a date. In college, we hung out in groups, pairing off here and there, growing intocouples, then breaking apart. It was so much more organic and disorganized. I had been on a few dating apps, but that hadn’t led to anything civilized either.

Will was urbane and accomplished. And there was something about him that was different from all the other arrogant, manicured men who came through the oak doors at the front of the club. He seemed humble and kind. I considered the age gap between us—was it fifteen, twenty years? What in the world could we possibly have in common?

I hesitated longer than I meant to as I weighed the worst that could happen. Then, I heard myself say, “I’d love to go. Thanks.”

I knew full well there was no way this could be the reboot I’d been pining for during all those lunch breaks in the park. But after so many long days at the museum or the pool, maybe dinner with Mia’s Hot Mean Lawyer dad would be a nice change of pace. I gave him my number.

A boring night out can’t be worse than all the boring nights I’ve spent at home.

Chapter10

Two days after

I check my phone, wanting desperately for there to be the call or the text to end this madness. I hear Alma let herself in the kitchen door, and I start a little. This is a new habit of mine. I’m on edge. My senses heightened to catch every sound and shift.

I was never meant to live in this house alone.

I realize I’ve been sitting on the end of the bed for what must be an hour. Time has become a flat circle in the last forty-eight hours.

As I step into the shower, I catch myself smiling about how Will usually comes to find me here. The pipes from our bathroom run along the far side of his office downstairs. In the beginning of our relationship, the hum of the water running was the siren call that beckoned him to casually walk upstairs like he’d forgotten something in the bathroom, but I was smart enough to know that he was there to see me naked. Because he could. Something about that memory rocks me, and the tears come as darker and more forbidding fears bear down on my mind. None of this is making any sense. Where is Will? What was that weird car I saw creepingpast the house? Ardell is treating me vaguely like I had something to do with all of this. And what was with Fritz’s comment about the firm?

Overwhelming panic-attack tingles vibrate through my body. I’m in control of nothing, and I don’t know where my husband is. I need this nightmare to end. I shake my hands rapidly, hoping to get out of the cycle my brain is in before I pass out in the shower. By the time I shut the water off, I realize I can’t just sit here and wait for someone to call me. Wait for something to happen. So, I throw on some clothes and head downstairs.

Alma is in the kitchen making an egg-filled something for me. Her gentle maternal energy soothes me for a second.

“Morning, Ms. Nora. How are you? Did you hear from Will?”

I shake my head.