GWEN

"I don't know where Toby is."

Judy babbled on, but I barely heard a word. My phone was pressed to my ear, clutched in my hand so tight my fingers burned. Not that it made a difference. Every word spoken by the woman who managed my husband's dental clinic was smothered by the roar of trucks blasting past me on the highway.

I wedged closer to the steel barrier as if another two steps would somehow dull the noise. I wasn't even sure Judy could hear me, but I needed to try.

I was running out of options.

Frantic words tumbled out. "Does anyone else at the clinic know how to get in touch with Toby?" I flicked a glance over my shoulder at the chaos swarming behind me. "It's an emergency."

That was an understatement. Three cars written off. Tow trucks. Paramedics. Cops. The night sky was on fire with the flash of red and blue lights. What a shitshow.

And then there was me. The blob of expensive athleisure huddled off to the side. I was a whole mood. There was no hint of the ass-kicking lawyer I used to be. I was rocking the suburban housewife vibe these days. Sparkly flip-flops. Yoga pants riding up my butt. Baby propped on my hip. Noah looked like an overstuffed blueberry snuggled up in his puffy coat, but he was getting restless, wriggly, kicking his chubby baby legs. I had the same itch to run.

We'd been stranded too long.

I wished the old me was there. She wouldn't be freaking out on the side of the road. She'd never act so damn helpless. She'd take care of everything. Whip everyone into shape. Make shit happen. I huffed out a frustrated breath. That girl was long gone. She was off licking her wounds because the shattered pieces of her career—hell, everything that made her tick—were buried under a pile of dirty diapers and endless responsibilities.

Judy started talking again. "He—" A horn blared. "Five—maybe—"

The steady whoosh of headlights turned fuzzy. Hot tears leaked down my cheeks, but I quickly scrubbed them away with the back of my hand. Talking to Judy was a total waste of time. I needed help. Screw that. I needed help an hour ago.

"Tell Toby to call me."

My thumb hit the screen to end the call, and I jammed my phone back into the waistband of my yoga pants. 

Where was Toby?

I had no clue. Every panicked call went straight to voicemail. I sent a hundred messages telling him I was stranded on the highway with Noah after some moron cut me off and... nothing.

Toby should have clocked off work at least an hour ago. Even on the nights he was on call for emergencies, he always came home first. He should be walking in the back door right about now, kicking off his shoes, smiles and kisses ready for me and Noah.

Wasn't he worried we weren't at home? Why wasn't he answering his phone?

Nerves burst to life in my belly.

Was Toby okay?

Fate couldn't be cruel enough for us both to be in an accident on the same night, could it? It could. It really could. God, anything could have happened. Maybe Toby was hurt. What if he—

I slammed the brakes on those thoughts quicker than I stopped my car in the accident. This wasn't the time for full panic mode. Noah needed me. I wasn't getting either of us off this highway if I collapsed into an emotional black hole.

I closed my eyes. Got my shit together. Focussed. The night air was a cold kiss on my cheeks. Noah was warm and safe and heavy hanging off my hip. I took a deep breath and forced the rest of the world to disappear, and for one magical second, I was free. The accident, the traffic, the lights—it all vanished.

Somehow, it would be. It had to be.

Headlights suddenly swerved off the road. The beam pinned me in place like a robber in a spotlight. My heart rattled faster under my ribs, and I stumbled backward, my nerves still coiled too tight after the accident. I squinted, hand over my eyes, wondering what fresh hell was coming for me now.

The tiny red car screeched to a stop.

My lips were soft on Noah's fuzz. There was a hint of a smile, too. "We're going to be okay."

The car door flew open and Marnie's hand shot up in a frantic wave. "Gwen!" She slammed the car door so fast that the bottom of her skirt got stuck. A sheepish smile flashed in my direction as she yanked it free. "The cavalry has arrived!"

Relief flooded my muscles until they were jelly. No one else would guess Marnie was reliable. Her head floated in the clouds. Always too busy thinking about art and pottery and sculpting pretty shapes out of ugly bits of rubbish to bother remembering the everyday kind of details. I knew I could count on her. She was a true friend. My best friend. She'd never let me down.

Marnie darted around the broken shards of what used to be my headlight and the bit of fender the cops had kicked to the side. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" Her eyes bulged. "Gwen, your car! The front end's completely totaled! What happened?"

I jerked my chin at the guy slouched against the tow truck. "Old mate over there didn't bother checking his blind spot before changing lanes."

Marnie's eyes rolled. "What a dumb ass." She squeezed her arm around me. "You okay?"

I kind of nodded. Physically, I was okay. The paramedics checked us over and gave us the all-clear. But mentally? Not even close. The accident ranked in the top ten worst moments of my life. It was right up there with the time I got food poisoning on a three-day remote kayaking trip where there were no toilets. Yeah. That's right. No toilets.

Marnie shot me a skeptical look but spared playing twenty questions. She was good like that. Knew when to back off. She bent down to Noah and crooked a finger stained with dried watercolors to tickle his cheek.

"What about you, little man?" she cooed. "You okay?"

There were none of the usual gummy smiles for Auntie Marnie. Noah's thumb stayed stuffed in his mouth, and his big eyes blinked, cautious and heavy from too much crying and being way past his bedtime.

I snuggled his puffy coat closer into my side. "Did you get hold of Toby?"

Marnie shook her head. "I tried a hundred times on the drive across town. Called the clinic. Called the hospitals. Called his mother." She let that comment sink in. We both knew it was dire straits if Sarah Sullivan had to be involved. Toby's mum wasn't exactly on my Christmas card list. "I eventually got through to that numbskull friend of his."

"Ian? What did he say?"

Marnie gnawed her teeth into her bottom lip. Uh oh. That wasn't a good sign.

"What?" The panic I'd slammed the brakes on earlier was suddenly speeding out of control again. "Oh my god, is Toby okay—"

Marnie's hand landed on my shoulder. "Toby's okay." She gave me a second to breathe before she tried explaining again. "Ian said... Well..." She paused, her eyes looking somewhere over my shoulder, probably searching for the right words so I didn't freak out even more. "Toby's at a party."

"A party?" On a Tuesday night? Who does that? "What party?"

My brain was scrambled. This made no sense. I'd crowned myself our family's Domestic Social Planner. I'd happily hand over the mental load in a heartbeat, but I figured if I was stuck organizing our lives, I should at least have a fancy title. And as the Sullivan household's inaugural Domestic Social Planner, other than the first birthday bash for Alfie Rawles next month, there were no other invites on the calendar.

"Yeah, a party." Marnie kicked at a bit of broken headlight with the toe of her sandal. "A housewarming party."

Nothing registered. My mind was still coming up blank. "Okay?"

"At Kayleigh's place."

I took a step back. No way. My head was swimming. Dizzy. Drunk on the shock.

Kayleigh wasn't a name I wanted to hear.

A twenty-three-year-old nothing shouldn't tie me up in knots, but Kayleigh was like an itch that never went away because you weren't quite sure where to scratch. She was just there. Everywhere. All the time.

She was the one who always answered Toby's phone when he was busy handling an emergency cavity or fixing a cracked tooth if some kid fell off the monkey bars. She got him coffee. She'd laughed a little too long at his terrible jokes at the dental clinic's last Christmas party.

I wasn't jealous. I had no reason to be, right? Toby insisted there was nothing to worry about. There was nothing weird about a girl barely out of college who'd majored in medieval French literature—of all bloody things—being his dental assistant. Nothing was going on.

Nothing at all.

Except I was the one stuck on the highway with our baby and a crashed car, and he was with her. Just low-key chilling out at her apartment. At a party I wasn't invited to.

I forced a smile. "I'm sure it's nothing." Denial. Pure denial. "Right?"

But I knew it meant everything by the way Marnie avoided my eyes. She kicked at the bit of headlight again. "There's photos."

"Photos?" I popped Noah higher on my hip, my hand fumbling to drag out my phone. "Tell me you're joking."

Marnie shook her head. She wasn't. She wouldn't. Not about something like that.

I zipped through social media posts at record speed. It didn't take long to find what I was looking for. Kayleigh's housewarming shindig was practically trending.

I started swiping through the photos.

The chain twisting around my heart loosened. What was Marnie so worried about?

Looked like a bloody boring party. Artsy photos of balloons. A cake. Familiar faces from Toby's work. Wanna know who's not fun to chat with at parties? Dentists. And every photo confirmed this party was swarming with a whole bunch of personalities about as exciting as my grandma's dried-out old meatloaf.

I swiped to the next photo. Shock cracked my chest open so wide I was sure my heart would splatter on the road with all the other broken junk from the accident.

Marnie's hand was back on my shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. "You okay?"

I nodded, dumb, speechless.

I blinked again at my phone, but the photo stayed the same.

Kayleigh was front and center, shiny and perfect, squeezed into an emerald dress that left very little to the imagination. With one of her strappy silver heels kicked up, she was leaning over to plant a kiss on the cheek of the man grinning for the camera. His arm was around her shoulder. Her arms were around his waist. The crowd of boring dentists cheered in the background. All fun and games. What a hoot.

But I wasn't having fun. I wasn't even sure I was breathing anymore.

Because the man with the traitorous smile beaming back at me was my husband.

Copyright © 2023 by Aubrey Whitten. All rights reserved.