Perfect Husband Act: Now My Wife's Sorry novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Day One

Ethan makes breakfast, irons her blouse and brings soup to her firm; Audrey scoffs, but her team sees, and in the elevator Travis tells him quietly: three days, huh? Enjoy them.

*Day one of three.*

The system woke me at six with that line, and I lay there and let it sink in.

Then I got up and made breakfast.

Eggs, the way Audrey liked them, soft in the middle, and toast cut in triangles because she said squares tasted dry.

I ironed the blouse she had left on the chair, the green one she wore for client meetings.

I set the coffee by her plate and stood by the stove with my hands empty.

For three years I had hovered there, waiting for a thank-you.

Today I did not wait for one.

Audrey came into the kitchen at seven with her hair wet and her face closed.

She stopped in the doorway.

She looked at the eggs, then the blouse, then me.

"What is this?" she said.

"Breakfast."

"I can see that."

"Then sit down and eat it."

She sat.

She picked up her fork and did not use it.

"You didn't say anything about last night," she said.

"There's nothing to say."

"I got home at two."

"I know. I heard the keys."

Her eyes went narrow.

"You always have something to say about two a.m."

"I did," I said. "I'm tired of it."

She put the fork down.

For a long moment she studied my face, and I let her.

"If you'd acted like this from the beginning," she said, "I wouldn't be so sick of you."

The words landed exactly where she had aimed them.

I smiled anyway.

"Eat your eggs, Audrey."

She ate three bites, stood up, and took the blouse off the chair without thanking me.

At the door she turned around.

"Don't think this changes anything."

"I don't," I said.

That seemed to bother her more than a fight would have.

At noon I took a container of her favorite soup to Hartigan Landscape Design.

Her firm had a glass front, and her whole team could see me walk in with the bag.

Four designers looked up from their drafting tables.

One of them whispered something, and another one stared.

I had not brought her lunch in a year.

I had come to her office twice that year, both times to shout.

Audrey was in the conference room with her mother's old blueprint tube under her arm, and she saw me through the glass.

She stayed very still.

I went in anyway and set the soup down in front of her.

"You skipped breakfast," I said. "You ate three bites."

"I told you not to think this changes anything."

"It doesn't. It's soup."

One of her designers made a sound that was almost a laugh.

Audrey's ears went pink.

"Ethan," she said. "Not in front of the team."

"I'll go."

"I didn't say go."

I waited.

She looked at the soup, and then, finally, at me.

"Stay for five minutes," she said. "Sit."

I sat.

"Did my sister put you up to this?" she asked.

"No."

"Did you do something you need to apologize for?"

"Not yet," I said.

Her mouth twitched, and she turned it into a cough.

The designer at the end of the glass wall pretended to study a plant, and failed.

I had barely pulled the chair out when the glass door swung open.

"Ethan! Man, I didn't know you were coming."

Travis Bannon walked into her conference room without knocking.

He was tall and easy in his charcoal suit, with a folder in one hand and the same smile he had worn at our wedding.

He clapped me on the shoulder.

"Audrey, you didn't tell me your husband was visiting."

"I didn't know," Audrey said.

Something crossed her face and was gone.

"I'm just dropping off the quarterly numbers," Travis said. "You two look cozy. I won't stay."

He laid the folder on the table and left it facing Audrey.

She did not open it.

She put her hand flat on top of it, and kept it there.

"Five minutes," I said, and stood up. "I'll let you work."

I kissed her forehead.

I had not done that in a year either.

Audrey went rigid, and her hand pressed harder on the folder.

I walked out with my back straight.

Travis fell into step beside me, humming, all the way to the elevator.

He pushed the button for both of us.

We stood side by side in the quiet, watching the numbers climb.

The doors opened.

We got in, and they closed.

Travis kept his eyes on the floor display and kept smiling.

"Three days, huh?" he said, softly.

I turned my head.

"Enjoy them," Travis said.

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