Chapter 3

The next morning, I tried again.

"I want you to ask her not to call you her work husband."

Grant looked up from his coffee.

"Do you trust me that little?"

The question worked exactly as he intended.

I began explaining myself. I told him I trusted him. I said I was not accusing him of an affair. I only believed married people should not accept romantic names from someone else.

By the time I finished, I was the one defending my character.

"So now I need your approval for every conversation I have with a woman?" he asked.

"That isn't what I said."

"Should I let you inspect every message too?"

"All I'm asking is that you tell one person not to call you her husband."

"And embarrass my entire team over a joke?"

I stared at him.

"So it is fine if I'm the one who feels humiliated?"

He rubbed his forehead and said we were going in circles.

I offered a solution.

"Invite her to dinner this weekend. Maybe I have the wrong impression. If I meet her, I can understand the friendship better."

"No."

The answer came too quickly.

He said Taryn was direct and we probably would not get along. Then he told me work and home should remain separate.

"You talk to her until midnight every night, but now you remember work and home should be separate?"

"There you go again."

I took out my phone and showed him a photo from the retreat.

Taryn wore Grant's suit jacket and flashed a peace sign beside him. Someone had commented, "Is the real wife okay with this?"

Grant had replied, "My wife knows how to be cool about it."

"When did I agree to let you use me as entertainment for the two of you?"

He pushed the phone away.

"People don't mean what they post online."

"I mean what I'm saying now. Does that matter?"

He walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

I stood outside the door.

"If I called another man my work husband, would it still be just a joke?"

The water kept running.

I knew he had heard me.

His silence answered anyway.

The next afternoon, Grant forgot an important document at home. I drove it to his office because it was also his birthday, and I had hidden his gift inside the folder.

I heard laughter as I approached the conference room.

On the wall-mounted screen, the team chat had a new name.

"Work Spouses LLC. Clients Pay Up Front."

Taryn leaned against the table beside Grant.

"Was your wife actually mad last night?"

Grant laughed.

"She overthinks everything."

"She must care about you a lot," Taryn said. "If I were her, I might be jealous too."

I stopped outside the open door.

My husband could have ended it then.

Instead, he lowered his voice as if they shared a secret.

"She didn't use to be like this. After years of marriage, some people get insecure."

The folder became heavy in my hands.

That morning, I had engraved our wedding date inside the cap of a fountain pen he once admired.

By afternoon, he was using the years I had loved him to explain why I had become difficult.

My shoe made a faint sound against the floor.

Grant looked up.

His smile disappeared.