Page 6 of The Temporary Wife

Colby

T he elementary school parking lot buzzed with controlled chaos.

Parents juggled car seats and diaper bags while older kids raced toward the playground, their voices carrying across the crisp October evening.

I sat in my truck for a moment, watching other families through the windshield and trying to calm the nerves that had been building all week.

Tonight, would be our first public appearance as a married couple.

The whole town would see us together, and I knew gossip would start before we even made it through the front doors.

But more importantly, Lyla would be here.

She’d made a point of telling me during yesterday’s tense phone call that she wouldn’t miss Luca’s art showcase, especially now that he had a “new family situation” to navigate.

“Dad, can we go in now?” Luca bounced in his booster seat, practically vibrating with excitement. “I want to show Mom my painting before everyone else sees it.”

Mom. The word still caught me off guard every time he said it, even though it had been a week since the wedding.

Gianna had slipped into the role so naturally that sometimes I forgot this was supposed to be temporary.

She made pancakes without burning them, helped with homework without losing patience, and tucked Luca in each night with stories that made him giggle.

She also shared my bed without complaint, careful to stay on her side while I lay awake listening to her breathe and fighting the urge to reach for her.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, buddy. Let’s go find your mom.”

Gianna stood near the school’s main entrance, talking to Summer Redman and looking effortlessly beautiful in a burgundy sweater and dark jeans.

Her hair caught the light from the parking lot lamps, and she wore the small diamond earrings I’d given her as a wedding gift.

She’d protested that she didn’t need anything, but I’d wanted her to have something real from this arrangement, something she could keep when it was over.

The thought made my chest tight.

“There she is,” Luca said, waving enthusiastically.

Gianna’s face lit up when she saw us approaching.

She hugged Luca first, listening intently as he chattered about his artwork and which projects he wanted to show her.

Then she turned to me with that careful smile she’d perfected over the past week, the one that looked genuine but never quite reached her eyes.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey yourself.” I brushed a quick kiss against her cheek, the gesture feeling both natural and foreign. “You look beautiful.”

Pink colored her cheeks. “Thank you.”

“Are we being convincing?” I murmured near her ear, low enough that only she could hear.

“I think so.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Summer asked if we were still in the honeymoon phase.”

Before I could respond, Luca grabbed both our hands and started pulling us toward the school. “Come on! Mrs. Patterson said the art show starts at six, and it’s already five after.”

Student artwork decorated the hallways, and families filled the space, admiring the displays.

Luca led us straight to his section, where a watercolor painting of our house hung prominently on the wall.

He’d painted it from memory, complete with the big oak tree in the front yard and the flowers in the window boxes that Gianna had insisted I needed long before she moved in.

“It’s us,” he explained proudly, pointing to three stick figures standing in the front yard. “That’s Dad, that’s me, and that’s Mom. We’re a family.”

My throat tightened. In his six-year-old world, this was simple truth. We lived together, we took care of each other, we were happy. He didn’t understand the complicated web of legal documents and pretense that had brought us to this point.

“It’s perfect, sweetheart,” Gianna said, her voice thick with emotion. “I love how you painted the flowers.”

“Those are the ones you planted. The purple ones that smell good.”

“Lavender,” she confirmed, reaching out to smooth his hair. “You have a wonderful memory.”

We spent the next hour moving through the displays, admiring artwork and chatting with other parents. I kept one arm around Gianna’s waist, partly for show and partly because I couldn’t seem to help myself. She felt right against my side, like she belonged there.

“Colby?”

I turned at the sound of my name and felt every muscle in my body tense.

Lyla stood behind us, perfectly polished as always in a designer dress and heels that clicked against the linoleum floor.

Her blonde hair fell in a sleek bob, and her blue eyes held the calculating look I remembered from our worst fights.

“Lyla.” I didn’t move my arm from around Gianna’s waist. “I didn’t see you come in.”

“I’ve been here for a while. Admiring Luca’s work.” Her gaze shifted to Gianna, and I felt my wife stiffen slightly. “You must be the new Mrs. Marshall. I’m Lyla, Luca’s mother.”

“Gianna,” my wife replied evenly. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise. Though I have to say, this all seems rather sudden. Colby never mentioned he was seeing anyone seriously when we spoke last month.”

The barb hit its mark, but Gianna didn’t flinch. “Sometimes the best things happen when you’re not looking for them.”

“How romantic.” Lyla’s smile was sharp enough to cut glass. “And how convenient, timing-wise.”

“Mom!” Luca appeared at Lyla’s side, his face bright with excitement. “Did you see my painting? It’s the one with my house and my family.”

Lyla’s expression softened as she looked down at her son. Whatever her faults as a wife, she did love Luca in her own way. “I did see it, baby. It’s very good.”

“That’s Dad and Mom and me,” he continued, pointing toward his artwork displayed on the wall. “We’re all happy together.”

“I can see that.” Lyla’s voice was carefully neutral, but I caught the flash of something in her eyes. Pain? Jealousy? It was gone too quickly to identify. “Tell me about school. Are you being good for your father?”

While Luca chattered to his mother about his classes and friends, I felt Gianna relax slightly against my side. But the tension in the air was thick enough to cut, and I knew this was just the beginning. Lyla was studying us, looking for cracks in our facade.

“Well,” Lyla said after a few minutes, “I should probably get going. I have an early meeting tomorrow.” She knelt down to hug Luca. “Be good, okay? I’ll see you soon.”

“Are you coming to my soccer game on Saturday?” Luca asked hopefully.

“I’ll try, sweetheart. Depends on work.”

The same excuse she’d used for the past three games. I bit back the comment that wanted to escape and focused on keeping my expression neutral.

After she left, Gianna sagged against me like a marionette with cut strings. “That was intense.”

“She was testing us,” I said quietly. “Looking for evidence that something’s not right.”

“Did we convince her?”

I thought about the way Lyla had watched us, the careful questions she’d asked, the tightness around her eyes when Luca had called Gianna “Mom.” “I’m not sure. But we didn’t give her anything obvious to work with.”

The rest of the evening passed without incident. We admired more artwork, chatted with Luca’s teacher about his progress, and made plans for upcoming school events. By the time we got back to the truck, I was exhausted from maintaining the performance.

“Ice cream?” I suggested as we buckled our seatbelts. “To celebrate surviving our first public outing?” I mumbled the last part for only Gianna to hear.

“Yes!” Luca cheered from the backseat.

Gianna smiled. A real smile this time. “Ice cream sounds perfect.”

The local ice cream shop was busy despite the cool weather, filled with families who’d had the same idea after the school event. We found a booth in the corner and ordered our usual flavors: chocolate chip for Luca, mint chocolate chip for Gianna, and plain vanilla for me.

“Dad’s boring,” Luca informed Gianna solemnly. “He always gets vanilla.”

“Hey now,” I protested. “Vanilla is a classic. It goes with everything.”

“It’s safe,” Gianna teased, licking her spoon. “Predictable.”

“I’m not predictable.”

“You had cornflakes for breakfast this morning. Same as every morning for the past week.”

Luca giggled. “And you always put two sugars in your coffee.”

“And you read the sports section of the newspaper first, every single time,” Gianna added.

“Okay, okay. Maybe I’m a little predictable.” I couldn’t help but smile at their teasing. This felt normal, natural. Like a real family enjoying a simple evening out.

“I like that you’re the same every day,” Luca said seriously, swinging his legs from the booth. “It makes me feel safe.”

The innocent comment hit me harder than I expected. This little boy, who’d already experienced too much change in his short life, found comfort in my routines. In knowing what to expect from the adults around him.

“Dad?” Luca’s voice pulled me from my brooding. “Can we go to the park tomorrow? Mom said she’d teach me how to tell different flowers apart.”

“If the weather’s nice,” I agreed.

“And Mom are you coming to my soccer game on Saturday?”

“Of course I’ll be there,” Gianna said before I could respond. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Good. You make the best noise with that horn thing.”

“It’s called an air horn, and yes, I do make excellent noise with it.”

The ride home was quiet, Luca drowsy in his booster seat and Gianna staring out the passenger window at the darkened streets. I wondered what she was thinking, whether the evening had been as emotionally draining for her as it had been for me.

Back at the house, we went through our established routine. Gianna helped Luca with his bath while I cleaned up the kitchen, then I read him a bedtime story while she finished some paperwork for the flower shop. Normal domestic activities that felt both comfortable and dangerous.

“How do you think we did tonight?” Gianna asked later, when we were alone in our bedroom getting ready for bed.

“With Lyla, you mean?”

“With everything. The whole performance.”

I thought about the evening and the way we’d moved together naturally, the easy conversation at the ice cream shop, the looks other parents had given us like we were just another happy family. “I think we did fine. Better than fine, actually.”

“It didn’t feel like performing,” she said quietly, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “Not all of it, anyway.”

“No. It didn’t.”

She was quiet for a moment, brushing her teeth at the bathroom sink while I changed into pajama pants. The routine was becoming familiar, comfortable in a way that probably should have worried me more than it did.

“Colby?” Her voice was muffled by toothpaste.

“Yeah?”

“What happens if this gets too real? If we forget it’s supposed to be temporary?”

The question I’d been avoiding all evening hung in the air between us.

I could give her the practical answer, that we’d stick to our agreement, maintain our boundaries, remember why we were doing this.

But standing there in our shared bedroom, watching her get ready for bed like she’d been doing it for years instead of days, the practical answer felt hollow.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

She nodded like she’d expected that response. “Me neither.”

We got into bed on our respective sides, maintaining the careful distance we’d established. But tonight the space between us felt smaller somehow, charged with possibility and danger in equal measure.

“Goodnight, Colby.”

“Goodnight.”

I lay there in the dark listening to her breathe, thinking about Lyla’s calculating stare and Luca’s innocent joy and the way Gianna had fit so perfectly against my side all evening.

Somewhere in the space between sleep and consciousness, I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like if this was real.

If the woman beside me was truly my wife, if the child down the hall was truly ours, if the life we were building was something we could keep.

But morning would come, and with it the reminder of what this really was. A performance. A temporary arrangement. A means to an end that had nothing to do with the feelings growing stronger between us every day.

I just hoped we could both remember that when the time came to walk away.