den surface of my workbench, a jarrin

my wife

oney, are

illions of followers on social media. The voice that m

inished canvas. It wasn' t going well. Nothing was, lately. My

baby. Listen, I n

g for you

, you know, for the sponsorship conte

her wing. His chiseled face and perfect body were all over her soc

bit deeper in the woods than we thought, and I forgot a very important care packag

r drive, one way. And the weathe

"But it' s really, really important. For the conte

m for refusal. I was the suppor

my shoulders slump

and come to the Blackwood Forest entrance. I' ll sen

before I could sa

"supplies." I didn' t look inside. It was her package, her business. I

ers on my old car struggled to keep up, smearing the water across the windshield and making the winding mountain roads tr

The car skidded on the wet asphalt. In the back seat, the cardboard box tipped over.

t," I m

ng on the roof of the car. I turned on the inte

had sp

e spilled all ov

't camping gear. It was

pes that made my stomach churn. Next to them, tangled in a heap, was a pile of delicate, expensiv

d went

there was only a ringing silence in my ears. The air felt thick, impossi

kage. This was a suitca

"sponsore

. The casual way he' d touch her arm. The way she' d look at him. I

e door and gagging, but nothing came up. The cold rain soaked through my shirt, but I barely felt it

at her picture on the screen, her smiling, beau

answer, my h

rp, impatient. The sweetness was gone. "Liam and I are getting r

e bored. Waitin

hread of denial snapped. This wasn' t a mistake. It wasn'

ck at the dark, winding road ahead. My first instinct was

rising up through the

She wasn't going to dismiss me like an

e flat and unfamiliar to my own

ckage. And I was going to loo