บททั้งหมดของ All Yours, Daddy: Short Steamy Stories: บทที่ 71 - บทที่ 76

The three nights Marcus’s wife spent in the city felt longer than three weeks. Elena went through the motions at the office like a woman underwater. She answered emails, sat through meetings, delivered the revised Midwest deck without a single stumble, and somehow managed not to look at the closed door of his office every time she walked past. Marcus was present but distant—there for the morning stand-ups, gone for long stretches in the afternoon, always the first to leave when the day ended. He never glanced at her longer than necessary. He never lingered. She hated how much she noticed. The prepaid phone stayed silent in her bag. No texts. No late-night summons. She checked it more times than she wanted to admit, always in the bathroom stall or the parking garage, always with the same empty screen staring back at her. By the second night she had started sleeping poorly again, waking at 2 a.m. with the phantom feeling of his hand on the back of her neck and the taste of

The train had been sitting dead on the tracks for forty-seven minutes. Rain hammered the windows in thick, uneven sheets. The overhead lights flickered once, then steadied into that soft, yellow quiet-car glow. Most people had already given up and were scrolling or sleeping with their mouths open. Elena kept her coat on, legs crossed, bag clutched against her hip like a shield. She had a deadline waiting at the other end of the line and a low, restless ache under her skin that had nothing to do with work. He boarded at the last stop before the delay—tall, dark coat still damp at the shoulders, a single leather bag, no phone in sight. He chose the seat directly across from her in the nearly empty quiet car. Not beside. Across. Close enough that their knees almost touched when the train gave its occasional, useless shudder. He didn’t look at her at first. Just settled, unbuttoned the top of his coat, and rested one long hand on his thigh. Clean nails. A thin silver ring on the m

You didn’t see him the next day.Or the one after.Sunday came and you sat in your usual spot, three rows back on the left. The choir finished. People stood. You waited for that familiar shape to cut through the crowd—dark hair, white shirt, the quiet way he moved like he was trying not to take up space. He wasn’t there. Not in the sanctuary. Not in the fellowship hall afterward. Not by the coffee table where he usually stood with a paper cup in both hands like it was something holy.You told yourself it was nothing. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he stayed home to pray the sin off. You left early and drove around with the windows down even though it was still raining a little. Your hand kept drifting to your mouth like you could still taste him.Wednesday night youth group. You almost didn’t go. Then you did.He was already there when you walked in. Sitting at the far end of the long table with an open Bible and a pen. He looked up once. Eyes met yours for less than a second. Then he dropp