My Husband Can Hear Every Unspoken Thought Of Mine novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Marina

A stubbed toe on a yacht, a monogrammed medical bag, and Melody saying she never called him.

I took a taxi to the marina and told the driver to keep the meter running.

He asked if I was following my husband.

"I'm following his bag," I said.

Ansel was already on the dock when I got there, walking fast with the black bag in his hand.

The Collier yacht sat at the end of the pier, white and enormous.

A man in a captain's hat waited at the top of the gangway.

The man in the hat was Barrett.

"The bride!" he shouted down at me.

He came off the gangway two steps at a time and hugged me before I could decide whether to let him.

He smelled like sunscreen and money.

"You," Barrett said, holding me by both shoulders, "are the best thing that ever happened to this man."

"I'm not joking," he added. "I cried at the altar."

"You did cry at the altar," I said.

"I did. Ask anybody. Come aboard, come aboard, Melody will be thrilled."

I walked up the gangway behind them.

Ansel did not look back at me.

That told me he was listening, because he was holding himself very still.

I thought, politely, I am not here to make you look back.

Ansel cleared his throat.

On the stern deck a woman sat on a cooler with her left foot up on a cushion.

She had short auburn hair and clay under her fingernails.

She also had the tired look of someone on the fifth hour of a long day.

"This is Melody," Barrett said. "Melody, tell them what happened."

"I stubbed my toe," Melody said.

"On a cleat," Barrett said. "A steel cleat, Ansel, in an open marina, with the tide coming in."

"The tide's been in since six," Melody said.

"She could have gone overboard."

"I was sitting down."

Ansel knelt and took her foot in both hands.

The toe had a bruise on it the size of a quarter.

He pressed it, asked her to wiggle it, and watched her wiggle it.

"It's not broken," he said.

"Could it be gangrene?" Barrett said.

"Barrett."

"I'm just asking questions."

"It's been forty minutes."

"We should call the Coast Guard," Barrett said. "Just to be safe."

I looked at the sky.

There was one cloud in it.

I thought, with real feeling, that someone should call the Coast Guard for Barrett's judgment.

Ansel coughed into his sleeve.

Barrett clapped his hands.

"Anyway! The reason I'm glad you both came."

He ducked into the cabin and came back with a long box tied in gold ribbon.

"A wedding gift," he said.

He gave it to Ansel, and Ansel opened it.

Inside was a new medical bag, black leather, with a brass clasp and A.M. stamped on the flap in gold.

"Your old one looks like it lost a fight," Barrett said. "You're a married man now. Carry something that says so."

It was a beautiful bag.

It was exactly the kind of present that makes it impossible to say no.

"Thank you," Ansel said.

"I had it made in Milan."

"I can see that."

Barrett took the old bag out of Ansel's hand.

It had a cracked handle and tape on the strap.

He set it on the cooler beside the bait.

Ansel's jaw tightened.

I thought, he can keep the old one.

I thought it only once, quietly, and I did not mean it for anyone.

Ansel reached over and took the old bag back.

"I'll keep this one too," he said. "It's got my coffee stains."

Barrett laughed.

He laughed at everything Ansel said.

I decided, standing there, that I would not hate him yet.

Barrett's phone rang, and he took it to the bow.

Melody looked at me, and then she looked at the galley door.

"Do you want tea?" she said. "It's the only way I can get off this cooler without him narrating it."

In the galley she put the kettle on a gimbaled stove and leaned against the counter with her bad foot lifted.

She was funny and quick and kind.

I had spent the whole walk down the pier deciding she was the other woman, and I felt a little ashamed.

"You didn't call him this morning," I said. "For the toe."

"No."

"Barrett said you ran off. He said you'd gone to the bridge."

"I went to the farmers market for coffee and a peach."

She held up a paper bag with one peach in it.

"I texted Barrett where I was," Melody said. "He read it. Then he called Ansel and said I'd left."

The kettle started to tick.

"The thumb yesterday took forty seconds," she said. "Ansel put a bandage on it and said it was nothing."

"Then where was he until ten past four?"

"At the hotel bar with Barrett, who cried twice."

I looked at her.

She looked back, steady and tired.

"I want you to know something," Melody said. "I didn't call him this morning. I didn't call him yesterday."

She put the peach down on the counter.

"I have never once called Ansel in three years."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend