Chapter 2

For the next few days, I kept waiting for the number to go back up.

I didn't go through his phone. Evan wasn't avoiding me, either. He talked to me when he got home, and when he heard I'd be showing work at a book restoration exhibit at the end of June, he pulled out the calendar and wrote down the date.

"The water-damaged photo album?" he asked.

"And a few books. The couple who own the album are coming too."

Evan remembered Walter and June Hale, the elderly couple who owned it. He also remembered how, when the album first came to me, I'd stayed up late separating the damp pages one by one. When I told him how the restoration was going, he listened closely and even asked if I needed him to clear some space so I could lay out my samples.

Little by little, I relaxed. Maybe I just hadn't figured out why the number had changed yet. Evan hadn't started getting tired of our life together the way I'd feared.

The morning after the contract was officially signed, he called and asked me to celebrate at the little restaurant we always went to.

I brought along a photo from when the hotel had just opened. Back then, the lobby lights were always going out. In the picture, he was standing behind the front desk, glaring up at the ceiling like he wanted to climb up there and fix them himself.

When Evan saw it, he laughed and shook his head.

"You took a picture of that?"

"How else was I going to prove there's something you can't handle?"

Evan reached over, pinched my cheek, and said Miles could never see this one. I laughed and put the photo away, promising to keep his secret.

We took our time over that meal. He didn't answer any calls, and he never left me sitting there alone. When I walked out of the restaurant on his arm, I even thought I'd spent the last few days worrying over nothing.

Then came the backyard barbecue that weekend.

Miles had invited a few friends, plus some of the people working on the hotel shows. Chloe was crouched on the lawn, picking up paper plates the wind had blown away. When she heard us arrive, she looked up and said hello, then went back to cleaning up.

I chatted with her for a while. She asked whether old paper could really be repaired, so I showed her before-and-after pictures of the album. Her eyes went wide, and she said she'd definitely come to my exhibit.

Later, Miles raised his glass to congratulate Evan on the contract.

"Finally, we don't have to look at his grumpy face anymore."

"He wasn't this calm that day," Chloe said, laughing. "Before the call even went through, he'd rewritten his opening remarks three times. Then when they actually said they'd sign, he didn't say a word. I thought something had gone wrong."

Evan laughed too. "Do you have to embarrass me like that?"

Everyone laughed along. But I froze.

The night of the signing, I'd asked him how much longer he had to wait. He told me to go to bed and said he'd let me know the second he heard anything. All this time, I'd thought he only got the confirmation the next morning.

But it turned out he'd heard that same night.

Chloe had been there through all of it: his nerves, his uncertainty, his relief when it was finally over.

"You didn't know?" She caught the look on my face and hesitated.

Evan jumped in. "We celebrated the very next day."

He looked at me, and all I could do was nod.

It was true. He'd made a dinner reservation and given me his full attention throughout the meal. It felt wrong even to be upset.

Chloe changed the subject and didn't bring it up again. But a little while later, Evan mentioned some funny moment from the signing, and she jumped right in. The two of them started laughing together all over again.

I held on to my cup and suddenly wanted nothing more than to go home.

My husband should have told me those details himself. Instead, I had to hear them from another woman.

On the drive home, I asked anyway.

Evan explained that the production team had still been going over paperwork, and Chloe hadn't left yet. When the confirmation call came out of nowhere, they all heard it together.

"It was really late. I didn't want to wake you up."

Of course I understood. They worked together, so there was no reason for him to send her out of the room first.

What hurt was that he knew I'd been waiting too, and once he finally had something to be happy about, he forgot to tell me.

There was a time when even a thank-you note from a hotel guest was enough to make him call me so he could read it to me.

"A text would have been fine," I said quietly. "I wanted to share that happiness with you. When all you told me the next day was that it was signed, I worried you might have been up late on your own."

Evan turned his head and looked at me.

"That's what you're upset about?"

I nodded. I felt hurt, but I didn't want to act like a kid fighting for attention.

Once the car came to a stop, he took my hand.

"I forgot, babe. From now on, you'll be the first to hear any news. Okay?"

When we got home, I texted him the old photo from the restaurant. He was working in another room, and it took him a long time to reply. He said he looked ridiculous in it.

Normally, I would have kept teasing him.

But that night, I'd already checked my screen several times, and I couldn't even bring myself to send the joke I'd thought up.

Now that the fear had set in, even waiting for my own husband to answer a text felt humiliating.