Chapter 1

The moment my wife, Renee Hickman, saw the pair of cotton slippers with some aspen leaves embroidered onto the front, the smile on her face froze at once.

Still, she tried to explain things.

"You know that Aspen is one of my most mischievous students. It's just a prank he pulled on me."

While saying that, she reached over toward my hand and swirled her finger lightly across my palm, just like how she used to do in the past.

I didn't respond to her. All I wanted to ask was, what kind of audacity would a student have to possess to come and go freely in his lecturer's home, reach into the safe, and even enter the en suite bathroom in the master bedroom?

And what on earth had she and Aspen Frost been doing inside that bathroom—and for how long—for them to have left the smudged marks on the mirror?

Had Renee kissed him the way she kissed me, by wrapping her arms around his neck and standing on her toes?

However, the moment the questions reached my lips, I forced them back down my throat. I also withdrew my hand from her.

Instead, I just looked at her and asked, "So, you're telling me that your student knows the passcode to our home, the way into our bedroom, and even the password to our safe?"

Renne pressed her lips into a line and didn't say a single word. However, the look she gave me held a hint of reproach.

That safe was a gift that I'd bought her with my very first paycheck. She told me back then that it would one day hold our marriage certificate, the property deed to our home, our savings book, and the birth certificate for our first child together.

But now, even my slippers didn't have a place in an apartment as big as this 3000-square feet one. Yet, her student's slippers could be brazenly stashed inside the safe, and she'd even thought up such a ridiculous idea of him simply pulling a prank to brush it off.

"What are you trying to say, Jerry Larsen? First the slippers, then the password, and now the safe?" Renee demanded.

Every time I asked her a question she didn't know how to respond to, she would always skip right past it and then pin the blame on me.

It was always the same every time I asked her when my indoor slippers would finally have a place in this home. I wanted something that didn't have to be thrown away every time her students, friends, or colleagues came over to visit.

She would always just grin and say, "On the day we make our relationship public."

"When will that be?"

She'd then adjust her glasses and reply, "When I secure my senior title at the university. If people found out now that I was having a relationship with my student, all my hard work up to that point would go down the drain."

That was the main reason I'd always grinned and bore it.

She told me that she didn't want a long-distance relationship, so I gave up on my chances to further my studies abroad. She told me that she often suffered from stomach problems, so I took up a 9-to-5 job at a small, private corporation that didn't require working overtime so that I would have time and energy to take care of her.

And to fit into her life and have things in common to talk about, I even quit my job later and studied late into the night until my eyes turned bloodshot, just to land a tenured TA position at her university.

But in the end, Renee kept asking me to wait. After securing her job title, there was a core project that she was vying for. After the project was completed, she wanted to aim for the title of "Best Outstanding Staff".

Over the past three years, I felt like I was just her butler, waiting hand and foot on her and cleaning up after her whenever she needed me.

Every time her students, friends, or colleagues came over for dinner, I would be the one taking time off work to buy the groceries and single-handedly preparing a lavish feast for all of them. And after preparing the feast, I would then clean up the place and lug the trash all the way down the stairs outside her apartment building with a mask obscuring my face.

She lived ten floors up. With each floor I descended with the trash, I'd always replay the scenes in my head, making sure that my disposable slippers were gone so that none of Renee's acquaintances would find anything amiss.

The kitchen had to be spotless, the food and drinks in the fridge had to be well stocked, and every strand of my hair had to also be removed from the bed and pillowcases in the bedroom and thrown into the trash. I had to make sure that there was nothing that her acquaintances could use against her.

Those days, her colleagues thought of me as a wonderful cook and housekeeper, and her friends thought of me as a very responsible hourly help. However, the only identity I couldn't assume was Renee's husband.

Yet, the position that I'd been vying for years was now so easily taken over by a male student of hers.

Renee didn't want other people to learn of my existence, so she threw my slippers into the trash. But when she didn't want me finding out about Aspen, she stashed his slippers inside the safe instead.

So, as it turned out, for all my magnanimity and sacrifice, the only place I earned was just the trash can.

It was pretty laughable.

Renee spoke up again just then, interrupting my train of thought. Her voice was gentle as she said, "You also used to be a student of mine. You know how hard it is as a student.

"Aspen is an orphan who grew up without his parents. I'm just keeping an eye out for him. Stop overthinking things, alright?"

A slight frown creased her face. She suppressed the impatience in her eyes, sighed, and wrapped her arms around my waist.