He didn't want to admit it to Maisie or Bill, but he enjoyed being around Grace. She was fun, and it had been a long time since he'd had real fun.
He watched the way she cooed and fawned over Bexley, and it became clear that Grace thought he was something special—someone to pay attention to. His thoughts twisted to Lily, wishing she had been able to see their son that same way.
He remembered the beginning of the end for them with a nauseating feeling in his stomach. He remembered watching her fixing her lipstick in the mirror of her oversized antique vanity. The lipstick was red, which she insisted brought out her ginger hair, but he always thought it had clashed.
"Hey, I had a thought. Interested?" he'd asked.
"Sure," she said.
"My mom's coming down this weekend."
"And my thoughts are one giant pass," she said, pressed a fingertip against his forehead and pushing him away.
"No," he laughed. "I mean, I was thinking we'd leave Bex with her for the weekend and get out of here. Let's take a plane to Cancun for a long weekend. We'll leave early Friday morning, we're there in five hours, come home Monday night. That's three nights of uninterrupted sleep," he tempted her, moving his hand farther down her stomach until he reached the band of her pants. "Uninterrupted by a baby, anyway. I can't guarantee you won't be woken up by me—”
Lily grabs his hand and moved it off of her before spinning around to look at him. "I don't know," she said, drawing out her words unsurely.
"Don't know about which part?" he asked, slightly taken aback. He thought for sure Lily would have been all over this idea. She'd been saying she wanted to get away since before Bex was born.
"I'm just not sure about going away," she said, biting her lip.
"You can pump for a while, and Bex will be fine for a couple of days. I know he's little, but—”
"No, it's not about leaving Bex," she said. "I just have plans this weekend."
"With?"
"Alison," she said. Her first of many, many lies.
"Oh," he said. At the time, he didn't think much of it, beyond it being poor timing. "Can't it wait?"
Lily made a face he couldn’t say no to. Her friendship with Alison was rock solid. "I promised her I'd go. She's leaving for Chicago in a couple of days and she'll be gone for months."
Trent wanted to sigh, but he didn't want to make Lily feel bad. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. "All right, fair enough. She wins this round. But I'm stealing you away for a weekend!"
"Do you mind if I leave Bex here when I go?" she asked absent-mindedly.
"That's fine. I'm pretty sure my mom would have a heart attack if she didn't get to meet him, anyway. How long are you going for?"
"I told her I'd stay the weekend," she answered, then smiled brightly as she said, "Hey, I just realized, you know what the silver lining is for missing your romantic getaway?"
Trent nodded and tilted his chin up, prompting her to answer, "I get to miss a visit with your mother!"
"Lucky duck," he said before pulling her into a kiss.
Lily was excited to go, and Trent, although disappointed that his surprise weekend hadn't worked out, was happy for her, too. Neither of them had been able to do much since Bex was born and he knew she'd been stressed out.
When she was gone, Trent made a decision he would later come to regret. After being unable to find his laptop charger, he opted to use her computer to finish answering some e-mails. Somewhere along the way, he got distracted and went on Instagram.
Forgetting he was on Lily's computer, he was surprised to find her still logged into her account. On the front-page photo feed, he saw that Alison had posted a photo of her and her boyfriend at the beach with no Lily in sight. "Can't believe my man took me to Cabo this weekend!" the caption read.
Trent's stomach fell. He stared at the photo and then clicked onto Alison's profile, citing photo after photo of the girl and her boyfriend enjoying a luxurious weekend at a spa.
He swallowed unsurely. Had he heard Lily wrong? Hadn't she gone to be with Alison?
And if she wasn't with Alison and their plans got derailed, where was she now?
At first, he was in denial. Lily wasn't a liar. She didn't keep things from him, because one, that wasn't how their relationship worked, and two, she was particularly bad at it, her face going a crimson shade of red whenever she tried to twist the truth to him.
“Say hi to Alison for me,” he texted her.
Within minutes she responded, “She says hi back! Hope you and my little Bexley are staying out of trouble!”
The message was followed by three red hearts. Trent stared at them hard, and then it sunk in.
Lily was lying.
His wife came home Sunday night just in time to visit with his mother for a while. She kissed Bex and talked with Kelly for forty minutes about the ranch and what Trent's brothers were up to before his mother decided she should head out and catch her plane back to Dallas.
It was all Trent could do not to bring it up while his mother was still in the house, but he patiently waited and did his best to seem like nothing was wrong.
Once they were alone, the two went into Bex's nursery and Lily read their son a story before putting him to sleep. He took the time to be in the moment with her, giving the best to their son and cherishing the calm before the storm.
When they walked into the bedroom, his whole demeanor changed. He felt on edge, suspicious, and sick to his stomach.
"I am exhausted," Lily said, walking into their ensuite bathroom.
"You had a big weekend," he said. "You wanna come out for a sec?"
"I'm just going to go shower really quick," she said. "I feel all gross from the plane. You wanna pick out a movie or something? I just wanna curl up in bed with you and watch something funny."
"I like the sound of that," he said, relenting to a smile. Holding his wife and watching one of their favorite movies sounded like heaven.
He walked to their television and decided on a film, but his stomach was a wreck. He'd had a bulb of anxiety lingering inside him all day. His eyes darted to Lily's phone as it rested on her nightstand. The two had always had an open-door policy about tech, though Trent had never utilized it before. He'd never checked her phone or logged into her e-mail because up until then, she'd never done anything to hurt him or make him question her loyalty.
Trent bit his lip and looked toward the bathroom before sliding his thumb across her screen in the shape of an upside-down seven. His heart was pounding hard against his chest as he quickly scrolled through her chat log only to find a slew of X-rated messages sent to someone named V. Legend.
Betrayal hit Trent hard, especially when he saw his wife's most recent exchange with the man, which read, “That went by too fast. I love you so much,” which was sent just two hours earlier.
Trent held the phone in his hand and stood by the foot of the bed, waiting for Lily.
She stepped out of the bathroom in a t-shirt and wet hair. She started walking toward him but stopped dead in her tracks as Trent held up her cell.
Lily threw a hand over her heart, and he could see that she was shaken. She looked surprised, then guilty.