Page 12 of Opening It Up (Humbled Superstars #2)

Harley

I was elbow-deep in dishes when my father-in-law Julius came into the room.

I wasn’t sure yet how to make myself a more attractive proposition than any of the other men my wife was dating.

This had never been a concern before. Lily-Mae had always been thrilled to spend all her time with me.

But I read an article that women found doing domestic work very sexy.

Of course, we already split chores, with me often cooking and her doing the dishes, but I was feeling a tinge of desperation.

The house had never been cleaner.

Because she was acting most unlike her usual self.

Instead of listening to my work stories and laughing at all the perfect places, my wife kept looking down at her phone, sometimes with a little adorable snort of laughter. Like there was someone else she found more interesting.

This wasn’t how this experiment was supposed to go at all. I was supposed to be having the time of my life meeting new and exciting women. Not standing here, miserable and lonely, while my wife laughed at jokes and memes some other man was sending her.

“What’s so funny?” I finally asked, when I absolutely couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Oh, it would take too long to explain.”

“Did you watch any of the videos I sent you?” I asked. “I had some great ideas for new movies to watch.”

“I’ll get to them,” Lily-Mae said without looking up.

So when Julius clapped me on the back I could have almost cried at the only person who was actually giving me attention.

“My divorce has been finalized,” he said, twirling his monocle.

“I shall devote myself solely to doing good deeds, and I will no longer be a ladies’ man.

In fact, I’m in such a celebratory mood, why don’t I take the boys tonight?

I’ll watch them all evening. I’ll even make dessert. You two go out and enjoy yourselves!”

My heart leaped at the idea of a whole evening with Lily-Mae. Just the two of us.

“I can’t see you permanently giving up the ladies,” my wife said to her father. “Don’t throw out your wedding tuxedos just yet.”

Julius scoffed. “My career as a ladies’ man is over, I tell you! Definitely over! For sure! For the next several weeks, at least. Now hold on, I know exactly the recipe to make. Let me get the family cookbook,” he added, leaping into the bedroom.

Oh my god, that family cookbook was a monstrosity.

“Should we get out some ice cream?” I laughed. “Because knowing your dad it could be anything as random as brussels sprouts covered in cinnamon.”

“Ah, the kids will enjoy it, no matter what,” Lily-Mae laughed. “Remember when he made that meat Jell-O and they somehow ate every bit of it?”

And for a second things were back to how they used to be, our eyes meeting with shared joy and understanding each other perfectly.

“Teagan! Rowan! Come here! Grandpa’s making dessert!”

“YES!” they both chorused, and there was a clatter as they tromped in from the LEGO room.

“Where would you like to go tonight?” I asked eagerly as the boys and Julius started rummaging around in the fridge.

Taking my wife’s hand, I drew her into the dining room. “Want to have a quickie before we go anywhere?” I whispered in her ear. “You’re looking amazing.”

“Oh, sorry,” Lily-Mae said. “I can’t go out with you tonight. I have a date.”

“A date?” I asked. “But you just had a date at lunch yesterday! And the day before!”

“Yes,” she said, “it’s all on the calendar.”

She went and pointed out where it said Brayden .

Brayden? Where did I know that name from?

“Who is Brayden?” I asked.

“I don’t know. He does marketing. Looks like a professional athlete.”

I felt sweat break out on my neck. Was it that guy I had seen kissing her fingers the other day? Fuck.

“Remember, you said we were supposed to put all our dates on the calendar?

I looked grimly over. Practically every single one of my wife’s nights was already spoken for, not to mention all the lunch dates etched on there with her neat and tidy handwriting.

Unfortunately, I had been avoiding looking at the calendar lately.

“I haven’t been updating it,” I said lamely.

But the issue wasn’t me updating it. Finding someone I actually wanted to go on a date with was going very badly. Nobody looked appealing. And with how much I worried about what my wife was doing, I barely had any time to find a date myself.

The problem here was my wife’s schedule always seemed to be packed.

I felt jealous that I didn’t even know where she was going, what she was doing.

“You’re not being transparent with me,” I said pettishly. “I don’t even know who this Brayden is. An athlete? There’s no athletes in the office building.”

“Brayden, age 24. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. 6’2. 220 pounds. Product Marketing Manager. Do you want me to tell you his penis size too?”

And I knew then that something was very fucked up between my wife and I but I didn’t know how to fix it.

“Why would you know his penis size?” I said angrily. “This isn’t supposed to be about just sex , Lily-Mae. It’s supposed to be about new experiences and horizons.”

“What new experiences did you have with Makayla?” my wife asked.

I gaped at her.

“What new horizons did you discover when you fucked her?”

“I—it isn’t?—"

Her eyes narrowed and I felt a shudder of pure, petrifying fear.

“ You lied to me, Harley. We said we’d never lie to each other. So don’t bother trying to take me out on dates unless you can give me a straight answer.”

Without another word, she sat down at the mirror and started doing her makeup.

Fuck

How did she find out?

I had never seen her this angry at me. What should I do?

What could I do to convince her that the three-month experiment wasn’t about Makayla? Well, not anymore.

My wife was never going to believe me unless I could show I had gone out on other dates too. Somehow, I had to find a way to fix this.

Eyeing my wife nervously, I texted my friend Jeff and asked him if anything was going on tonight.

He answered quickly, and I looked up at her, my heart racing with anxiety.

“I’m going to a mixer at the office. I might even do a live recording of my podcast there.”

“Good,” Lily-Mae said. “I can’t wait to hear about how joyous and fulfilling having an open marriage is in your next episode.”

And then, before I could think of anything to say, she was gone.

Depressed, I pulled on a polo shirt and slacks and drove down to the office, where the small wine bar on the second floor was moderately full of other employees looking to get laid.

But all I could think about was where Lily-Mae was and what she was doing.

Even the wine tasted like goat piss in my mouth as I moodily downed a glass.

“I heard you and your wife have an open marriage,” a low, husky voice whispered in my ear.

I jerked around in surprise.

The idea of going on a date with anybody else made me feel sick, but I needed to show that I hadn’t lied to her about Makayla.

“How did you hear that?” I asked cautiously.

The woman behind me was incredibly beautiful, lightly tanned skin and long, flowing dark hair.

Was she one of the doctors from the 19 th floor maybe?

“Word gets around,” she said. Her lips were plush and pillowy.

“I’m Dr. Eliana Ramirez,” she added, sticking out her hand.

OK, good, a doctor, that was good, surely that would make Lily-Mae agree to cancel the whole open marriage?—

“So is she?” Dr. Ramirez repeated, and I realized I’d been daydreaming about how to convince my wife to agree that the open marriage was not working and go back to the way things used to be.

“Is she what?”

“Bi. Is she bisexual?”

“Why do you want to know?” I asked, baffled.

She threw her hands up in exasperation.

“Idiot! I want to know if she’d go out with me, of course. Can you give her my number?”

“You want Lily-Mae’s number?”

“Of course,” Dr. Ramirez said, making a wrap-it-up gesture at me.

“She’s straight.”

“Well, fuck.” She rummaged around in her purse and scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Give her this anyway. In case she changes her mind.”

When I still stared in confusion, Eliana’s jaw dropped.

“Wait, you thought I meant you ?” She let out a burst of tinkly laughter, even throwing her head back with glee.

“Well, yes,” I said irritably. “I know word has gotten around we are in an open marriage.”

The doctor laughed even harder, clutching her sides and wiping the tears that streamed down her face.

“Honey, nobody wants you . Everyone in the entire office building has had a hard-on for Lily-Mae ever since she started teaching that sexy as fuck yoga class next to the café. No one’s thinking about you at all. Except maybe how dumb you were to open up your marriage.”

She walked away, laughing heartily.

Shame and fury blazed through me.

How the fuck had this all gone to shit?

To distract myself, I got out my microphone and attached it to my collar. At least I could get some good content out of this.

Surely things were going to turn around for me soon.

I put on my best podcaster voice and hit record .

“Open marriage chronicles, week 1. Here I am, out at a mixer, and the night is fresh and young. Trying to decide who to connect with is such a wonderful problem to have.”

I turned around to decide which ghoul I could pretend to have an interest in when I choked on my next words.

Because there was my wife, right across the street at a concert in some dive bar.

And not just at the concert. But up on stage singing along, with that big blonde guy Brayden behind her, grinding up against her ass and kissing her.

Suddenly I forgot everything except going over and putting a stop to it somehow.

I had to put a stop to this open marriage right now.

With a clatter, I forgot everything else and bolted from the room, pelting down the noisy stairs and then running across the street, dodging the streetcars and taxicabs that blared their horns angrily at me.

“Lily-Mae,” I called out, even though she couldn’t hear me, and my voice was so fucking weak and whiny but I couldn’t help it.

“Lily-Mae!” I hollered as I reached the door of the bar, my voice cracking as I called out again.

But she was still on stage, with this jackass behind her. I could see the outline of his dick in his tight jeans, his hands all over my wife’s body.

I was sputtering with rage when I got to the bar, and I hoisted myself up on the stage without a moment’s hesitation.

“I demand you take your filthy hands off her!”

But it was so noisy they still couldn’t hear me, Lily-Mae rolling her head back against Brayden’s big chest, her eyes closed in bliss as she gyrated to the music, her hips moving in hypnotically sexy circles.

I was panting and making little strange growls and grunts of rage, ending in a wolfish howl as I saw her bend down and a tiny pink strip of her thong popped out of her tight skirt.

There was a strange crackling sound in my ear, but I ignored it in favor of grabbing Brayden’s arm and attempting to drag him off my wife.

The other man stumbled back but his big meaty fist swung with him, landing squarely on my nose with a crunch.

“Harley, what the fuck!” Lily-Mae cried. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t like this,” I protested as blood spurted from my nose. “I don’t like you going on these dates.”

“Dude! You opened up the marriage,” Brayden said. “And what’s that electronic thing on your face?”

And I realized with a shock of horror that like a moron, I had live-streamed the entire embarrassing incident to my millions of followers, including my high-pitch squeal when I saw them kissing.

Shit.

I jabbed my finger on the END RECORDING button but the comments had already started pouring in.

And even worse than that was the pitying look on my wife’s face.

“This is what you wanted, Harley,” she said. “You got what you wanted. An open marriage.”

And then Brayden pulled her away into the crowd and I couldn’t see her anymore.