I love my husband.
And our marriage? Better than good. Like, embarrassingly good.
The only real complaint I have — and I mean the only one — is that Nathan works too much. He loves me enough to race home every night, which means he ends up dragging his laptop into the study at midnight because he ran out of hours in the day. It's annoying. It's also kind of sweet. That's very Nathan.
So there I am. It's past midnight. I can see the light under the study door.
I think: okay. I know how to get his attention.
I pull on my good lingerie. The black lace one. The one that basically does all the talking for me. I check the mirror, give myself a nod, and walk down the hall.
I come up behind him. Wrap my arms around his neck.
"Bed time, baby."
I press my face into the side of his neck. And I stop.
He smells different.
Not wrong. Just... different. New. Something I don't recognize.
I pull back a little. Breathe again. It's definitely not his.
Nathan uses the same cologne he's used for three years. I know that smell the way I know my own name. This isn't it.
"You changed your cologne?" I keep my voice light.
He reaches up and squeezes my hand without turning around. "Hm? Oh. Yeah, trying something new."
"Since when do you try new things?"
He laughs. "Since now. Come on, I'll be done in twenty minutes."
I go back to bed.
I stare at the ceiling.
Twenty minutes turns into an hour. He slides in beside me, kisses my shoulder, and falls asleep in about thirty seconds.
I don't sleep at all.
* * *
