Are you sure he loves you the way I do? I don’t think you understand how far I’ll go to keep you mine. Do you think he would do the same?
I reread the words ten more times before I know I’m not dreaming. The words are real, and the email is real. There’s no signature, there’s no name to the email. But like the note left on our bed back in Providence, I don’t need a name to know who it is.
The address isn’t one I recognize. Generic, leaving no indication of its owner.
My hand flies out, frantically fumbling for the handle to my driver’s side door. I finally catch it, swinging it open, bending over just in time for my entire lunch to hit the concrete down below.
I struggle to breathe under the now pounding rain.
My worst nightmare has come true.
He’s found me.
Eight
Logan
“Tell me more about your friend.”
“What?” I ask.
Max is sitting back in his chair in our office. The fabric of his dark blue suit stretches across his arms as he leans his elbow on his desk. He’s absentmindedly playing on his phone and I can tell by the way his finger slides across the screen that he’s most likely surfing his social media accounts. He loosens his tie, pulling at the knot around his neck. After Lena and Abby left, Max had told me he had just returned from a meeting with Gavin James, discussing the menu and time of the event. I wasn’t too offended he had gone without me. He’d left the running of the restaurant to me and said there were several meetings with Gavin coming up where it was imperative for me to be there. Max’s continued trust in me was becoming more apparent with each day. He needed me to help coordinate this enormous fundraiser with Gavin, all the while keeping the restaurant still running.
That’s where Natalie came in. Because of Max’s meeting, I was then tasked with training Natalie. Where I had been all morning. That’s where Natalie came in. She needed to be trained for the moments neither of us could be there. Training Natalie has become a small battle. She’s an excellent chef and has some great skills but her lack of attention to detail is what’s so frustrating. She’s a great technical chef but her passion for our way of cooking was lacking.
Today was more frustrating than any other day I’ve been forced to train her. I was thankful when Lena had stopped in for lunch because it allowed me time to be distracted from the frustration and pressure I’d been getting from training all morning. At this point, if Natalie didn’t catch up soon, I wasn’t entirely sure how long she’d last under Max’s thumb.
“I’m talking about Abby.” Max grins. “I want to know a little more about her before we have our dinner.”
“Come on, Max,” I groan. “Please don’t throw me in the middle of this.”
“What do you mean? Middle of what?” He leans back, offended by my statement.
I laugh, knowing exactly the kind of man Max can be. It’s not that I don’t want to tell him about Abby. It’s just that I don’t entirely know too much about her, other than what Lena has told me in the past. I’m not sure how much information I can actually give him.
And to be honest, my thoughts haven’t strayed far from Lena all day.
Ever since she stopped in for lunch, I haven’t been able to get her out of my head. She’s always consumed my thoughts, in more ways than one. But I know my wife well enough to know that she was off today. It was like that day I was late from coming back from taking inventory. Our marriage is beginning to feel like a literal rollercoaster. One minute we’re at the top of the hill, feeling the thrill of the first drop. But once the drop starts, it doesn’t end, barreling us down to the ground. It was beginning to feel exhausting trying to figure out a way for us to begin the climb back up to the top.
Lena had looked at me with hesitation in her eyes when she had seen me emerge from the kitchen. I had been distracted when she’d come unannounced, frustrated with Natalie’s lack of attention.
As Lena sat down at her table I could tell her mind was somewhere else. Her eyes were vacant yet again and I didn’t even know why.
There was this inherent feeling starting to brew inside me, gnawing at me, telling me that I needed to figure Lena out. Or else it would begin to tear my marriage apart at the seams. Stitch by stitch.
I sigh, sitting back in my desk chair, unsure if I have the mental capacity to talk with Max about his instant crush on Abby.
Max hasn’t always been known to be a one-woman kind of man. For as long as I’ve known him, he changes women as often as he changes the Sunday brunch menu.
I tap the tip of my pen against my desk and release a heavy breath, filtering through my past to see which details I’ve told Max before. I consider for a moment to disclose a bit more than what I’ve told him so far. He may be my boss, but he’s also the closest person I have to calling my friend. Maybe I could trust him with a little more. “She’s been friends with Lena since college,” I start. “I don’t know too much about her other than that she’s originally from California. I think she graduated with an accounting degree.”
“Where did her and Lena go to college?”
It’s an honest question. One that under normal circumstances wouldn’t make someone think twice about answering. But my past wasn’t normal, and neither was Lena’s. Julian was out there somewhere. The only thing worse than our decision to let Julian go was we didn’t know where he
