The Soccer Star's Forgotten Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Envelope

Dex admits he hid the letter to keep her home, Meg leaves for her friend Robin's couch and calls the referee chief, who gives her nine days to pass a fitness test.

I was still in his desk chair when the front door opened.

It was ten past one.

I heard his keys hit the bowl, then his shoes, then nothing.

He'd seen the lasagna on the stove.

"Meg?"

I walked out to the kitchen with the envelope in my hand.

Dex stood by the island in his navy suit with his tie in his pocket.

He held out his palm.

My ring was in it, still pink from the wine.

"You scared the hell out of me," he said. "Courtney thinks you're unstable. I told her you're just tired."

I laid the letter on the marble, right on the stain I hadn't finished scraping.

I turned it so he could read it.

He didn't need to.

"Where did you get that?"

"Your drawer. Under your passport."

"You went through my desk?"

"I went to get my passport, Dex. It lives with yours. Like a wife's would."

He put the ring down beside the letter.

"Say it," I said.

"Meg."

"Say what's in the box at the bottom."

He looked at the ceiling.

"It says pass."

"And the assessor who called you?"

"There wasn't a call."

I'd known it for three hours.

It still hit.

"Why?"

"Because I'd just got called up." His voice went up. "Because a ref married to a player? You'd have been on every sideline in the league. They'd have made you choose. I needed you home."

"You needed me home."

"I needed you, okay? You were the only one who knew what I was doing. Your clips. Your notes on every ref. I'd be on the bench without you."

"So you made sure I had nowhere else to be."

"That's not fair."

"I held you on that couch while you lied to me," I said. "I cried into your shirt. You stroked my hair."

He reached for my hand across the counter.

I took it away.

"We can fix this," he said. "I'll get you something with the club. Video analyst. Real title."

"Under what name?"

He didn't answer.

That was the answer.

I went back to the bedroom and zipped the black duffel.

I put the letter in the side pocket with my old whistle.

Then I took my analysis laptop off the shelf, the scratched silver one with five years of his matches on it.

I'd bought it with my last paycheck from the league.

When I came out he was in the doorway.

He didn't block it.

He never blocked anything.

He just stood there looking wounded, so you had to walk past him.

"Where are you even going to go?" he said. "You don't have any money."

I picked up the ring from the counter.

It was the only thing in the condo with my name on the receipt.

"Watch me," I said.

Robin Dace lived on Capitol Hill, up a flight of stairs that smelled like somebody's burnt popcorn and somebody's weed.

She opened the door in a paramedic T-shirt and boxers, holding a slice of pizza.

She looked at the duffel.

She looked at my face.

"Oh, thank God," she said. "Finally. Get in here."

For five years she'd texted me every Saturday morning.

"Got a game, come run the line."

"Are you alive."

I'd answered one in ten.

She'd never stopped.

She handed me the pizza.

It was cold.

It was the best thing I'd eaten all year.

"Talk," she said.

I put the letter on her coffee table.

Robin read it.

Then she stood up and walked around the whole apartment once, very fast.

"I'm going to kill him," she said. "I have the training. I know exactly where everything is."

"You're a paramedic. You're supposed to keep people alive."

"I know how to do it backwards." She sat down hard. "Married? You're married to him? For five years?"

"Courthouse. Two strangers for witnesses."

"And you didn't tell me."

"He said it would cost him his contract."

"Meg, I'd have kept it. I keep things. I'm a vault." She stuffed a whole crust in her mouth. "Mostly."

I laughed.

It came out wet.

Robin pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and threw it over my head.

"Sleep," she said through it. "Then we ruin his life."

I didn't sleep.

At seven I picked up my phone.

The chief's number was still in it.

He answered on the second ring.

"This is Meg Raynor," I said. "I used to referee for you."

There was a long pause.

"I know who you are," he said. "You quit by email."

"I'm calling to tell you why."

I told him everything.

The courthouse.

The letter.

The assessor who never called.

My husband, number 9 for Front Range.

My voice shook once, on the word husband, and I kept going.

He didn't say anything until I was finished.

"Put it in writing," he said. "All of it. The marriage too. Today."

"I will."

I wrote the email on Robin's kitchen table while she made eggs and swore at the pan.

I wrote the words "my husband, Dex Lovell" and looked at them for a long time.

Then I hit send.

At 7:52 my phone rang.

"I read it," the chief said. "You're five years out of shape and you're married to the most famous player in my league."

"Yes, sir."

"Nine days," he said. "The fitness test is Monday the twentieth. Pass it and I'll give you a match."

I stood up so fast I knocked over Robin's orange juice.

"And Raynor," he said. "Cody Duffield's holding the stopwatch."

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