Chapter 1
Crumbling Sanctuary
Avery
The kitchen smelled like butter and thyme, the way it always did when I made chicken pot pie, my husband’s favorite. Over the years it had turned into somewhat of a comfort food for me too, though lately I’d found myself making it more often than I used to.
I was stirring the filling when I heard Jax’s keys in the door. My eyes drifted to the digital clock on the oven. Exactly 5:30. I could rely on him coming home at the same time every day. I didn’t even have to check.
“What are you making?” Jaxon’s voice came from behind me, his lips pressing against my temple as he set his briefcase on the counter. I knew he would turn to our son next. And sure as the sun rose in the east, he ruffled Ben’s hair, earning delighted giggles from him.
“Chicken pot pie,” I said, watching him try, unsuccessfully, to clean Ben’s sauce-covered face. “I’m a little behind. It would have been on the table but I got held up by this little rascal,” I smiled, nodding at our pasta munching three-year-old.
“Sounds great,” he sighed in defeat when Ben took a handful of saucy pasta to his freshly cleaned face.
“How was your day?” I asked smiling at him. Tiredness lined my husband’s face. He needed to relax a little after a long day at the office. A belly full of chicken pot pie would be a great start and, after seventeen years of being with my High School sweetheart, I already had half-a-dozen ideas on how to make his evening more comfortable.
“Oh,” Jaxon shrugged, “pretty much the same. Nothing exciting to report. What about you? Did you talk to my mom about the anniversary?”
“Yes. Me and Ben visited. Went over the guest lists and catering. I’m going to talk to Savannah, see if she can give me some good recommendations.” As my best friend and Glasswater’s best event planner, Savannah was going to be a blessing when it came to planning the in-laws 40th wedding anniversary. Even with her help, it was still going to be a mountain of work. It would be endless discussions around decorations and food. But they were family and family meant everything me.
“That’s nice,” Jax noted, glancing at his phone. “Uhm, so—” he began as I turned to the oven to put our food in. “—it looks like I have to get back to the office for a bit.”
“Oh?” There wasn’t a week in recent memory when he hadn’t had to go back to the office for the evening. This new company was running him ragged. Less than a year in and the hours just kept getting longer. I wasn’t sure who needed insurance in the dead of night, but I knew nothing about the business, having never had a job myself. But it seemed a lot to ask of someone if he had to leave his family right after he came home.
“Can’t you stay for dinner?” I pleaded a little too intently, but it did the trick.
“I can stay for dinner and—,” with a guilty expression on his face he added. “I want to put Ben to down. It’s the least I can do, right?”
“And eat,” I reminded him. “It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
He gave me a little smile. Still guilty, but at least we would get to spend a little time together.
“Have you talked to your boss about this?” I asked, cleaning the kitchen counter with a damp cloth.
“I can’t do that. I’ve barely made an impact. I’m not going to complain to him about late hours. We knew this might happen when I switched to a bigger firm.” Jaxon repeated, almost word for word, the same thing he’d said last time I’d brought it up.
“I know. I just… miss you. I want some time with my husband too,” I leaned in to kiss him. “Is that so bad?”
“No. I know. I’m sorry,” he sighed heavily, fingers curling around his phone as if it was to blame for his workload.
“It’s okay. We get to be together on the weekend, right?” I smiled, glancing at Ben. Our little miracle was done eating. The leftover pasta had become a toy which he was getting all over himself. “Would you mind cleaning up your son and getting him ready for bed?”
Jaxon followed my gaze, chuckling under his breath. “He’s such a messy eater.”
“I wonder where he gets it from.”
“Me?” Jax rose both brows at me.
“Well, he sure doesn’t get it from me!” I kissed him one last time, before grabbing the oven mittens to extract dinner. The steam billowed out and I leaned back to let it dissolve. As Jax took Ben upstairs, the sound of my husband and my baby talking about their days, slowly faded away. I couldn’t help but smile.
He was a good father. Even when he had to work too much, he always tried his best to at least read Ben a story and put him to bed. He loved that boy more than anything and it was good that he did. It was exactly the way it was supposed to be.
“Five more minutes,” I muttered to the food. Then it would be perfect, just like everything else—Jax upstairs with Ben, dinner almost ready, our little family routine humming along like it always did.
I reached for the oven mitts when I heard it. A buzz from the counter. Jax’s phone, lighting up next to his briefcase where he’d left it.
“Jax?” I called, but there was no answer. Removing the mittens I checked his phone, worried something urgent had come through from the office. His phone lit up again, buzzing insistently. Once, twice, three times in quick succession. The preview notifications were right there on the lock screen. Impossible to ignore. Still, they made no sense.
It didn’t register. My brain paused, buffering while trying to translate the information it had just received. My heart became a spinning wheel in the middle of my chest.
I stared at the message.
… that thing you like so much…
I could hear the water running upstairs. Jaxon was probably helping brush Ben’s teeth, using that silly shark-shaped toothbrush our son adored. Ben was laughing.
Just one floor away the world kept turning as though nothing had changed, but inside me, something had begun to shatter. My fingers felt numb. My heartbeat was erratic. I was still holding the oven mitts in one hand, like I’d forgotten what I was doing. The kitchen smelled safe and homey, but it suddenly felt like a lie.
Jaxon was supposed to be my forever. My first kiss to my last kiss and everything in between.
Can’t you just ditch her?
Late nights. Goodbye kisses forgotten. He didn’t touch me the way he used to. All of a sudden, that guilty glint in his eyes made perfect sense. It wasn’t because he felt bad for working too much. He felt bad because he was lying to me. Because he…
My throat went dry. Fingers, with a mind of their own, tapped the message on screen. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was a chance that this was just a mistake. Wrong number. A coworker wanting to text her boyfriend and accidentally texting my husband. These things happened, right?
“Oh my God,” I gasped into the mitts……
