Out of Bounds Ch. 03

Author's Note:

This chapter includes sexual themes (a sex dream and a masturbation scene, nothing graphic), suspected infidelity, and emotional distress. The next chapter contains explicit sexual content.

To the reader who flagged posting in chunks: thank you! I'll finish this story one chapter at a time, since there's only one left, but I'll take your advice for my next series and upload it as a complete piece. Final chapter coming soon.

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At the end of training, Jules calls the parents over. Her voice drops a register as she begins to speak. Luna and some of the other girls stay on the field kicking the ball.  

"I'll keep this quick," she says, clapping her hands together. "The tournament's coming up. It's in Sacramento, and I need help with the logistics. If anyone could lend a hand, that would be great."

I know this job. It's thankless and involves a lot of emailing, chasing up parents for money, organizing transport. The silence is prolonged. The dad next to me mutters, "Isn't this what our club fees are for?" Kellie checks her phone. Not sure if she's actually texting her husband or just pretending. I feel bad for Jules.  

"Don't all jump up at once," Jules says. A few people chuckle, but no one comes forward.

I think of Nate. We're lucky if he's home by six. Any errands that need to be run mean one of us has to be with the kids.  

It just might lure him home earlier.  

I wave. "I can help."

"Thanks, Loz." The crooked smile.

As the other parents clear out, Jules walks over, grinning. "That's twice now you've put your hand up."

"What can I say?" I flick my ponytail over my shoulder. "Someone's gotta do it." 

She puts her hands in her sweater pockets. "Okay, so I was thinking if we-"

"Mom." Luna is tugging my sleeve. "Mom, I'm hungry."

"One second, baby."

"But I'm starving." She's using that distressed voice that occasionally still works on Nate but not on me.

My phone rings. It's Nate. "Just a moment," I say and answer.

"Where do you keep Noah's pajamas again?" 

"They're in the second drawer. The same one they're always in."

"They're not there," he repeats.  

I sigh and roll my eyes. Jules presses her lips together like she's trying not to smile, her gaze slipping past me. In the corner of my eye, Luna tips her head back. She's probably rolling her eyes, too. It's a very accurate impression of me, which is the problem. If she thinks I enjoyed it, she'll do it every day for a week, and then I'll snap and we'll fight. So it needs to lose its oxygen now.

"Okay, I'm leaving now," I say, giving Luna a look that says she's on thin ice. "I'll help when I get home."

I hang up. Jules is shifting her weight from foot to foot, hands in her pockets again. Did she think that look was for her?

"How many parents does it take to find a pair of pajamas?" I say. Then I remember what she told me at her place, about not wanting kids. I bet this is exactly what makes her glad she doesn't have any.

Jules smiles at me. "Maybe we can make a time," she says. "You've got a lot on your plate right now."

"Yes," I say. "Please."

On Monday, Nate texts me at quarter to six. "I'm running late. Can you reschedule your soccer thing?

I should have known this would happen. Twice last week he came home after the kids were in bed.

I text Jules. "Want to reschedule? Or we could just talk it through on the phone?" I feel bad.

The three dots appear, disappear, appear again.

I can't stand it, so I jump in. "Or you could come here? My kids will ambush you, but they calm down eventually. Like labradors."

She replies with a laughing emoji. "Of course. Anything to make this easier. You're doing me a favor, and you don't have to."

I respond with a love heart. And "text when you're on your way." So that's settled. Now I have an hour and a bit to make my kitchen look like it wasn't just hit by a bomb.

The kids eat their dinner in the living room, in front of the TV. They're watching Dude Perfect, which is the one show they bicker about the least. It's also the reason they've been asking Nate to hoist them onto the roof so they can throw basketballs off it. I'm still deciding whether that counts as positive risk-taking.

I make them pause their show.  

"There's been a change in tonight's schedule," I say.  

"Dad's running late again," Luna says. Noah puts his head in his knees. I kneel down and rub his back.  

"I know you're disappointed. But guess who is coming over?"

"Jules is coming over?" Luna says, bouncing with excitement. Noah's head bobs up again.  

"Yes," I say. This is going better than expected. "Here's the deal. The first ten minutes that she's here. Say hi to her. Chat to her. Don't throw things at her." They laugh, and then Luna gives Noah a look I know too well.  

"And do not throw things at me or anyone or anything else." 

Luna slumps back, disappointed that the loophole is closed.

"Ten minutes tops, okay? Then I need one hour interruption free."

"What do we get?" Luna says. She is ten-years-old and understands how to negotiate.  

"Ice cream." Nate would have given them ice cream anyway. But they don't need to know that.  

"Two scoops," says Noah.

"Three," says Luna.  

"Two each, and extra toppings."

"Deal," they say together.

As I walk out, I hear Luna hiss, "Always start high, Noah."

I slip into the bedroom and check myself in the mirror. There's a small mark on my shirt, just below the collar. I peel it off and pull on a clean one, then tighten my ponytail.

Jules arrives at five past seven. The doorbell goes off, and the kids pile out of the living room.

"I'll get it, Mom," Luna says. She's changed into her LA Galaxy jersey. She's desperate for Jules to notice it and trying very hard to look like she doesn't care.  Noah has pushed a pair of toy goggles up onto his forehead. They're night vision, apparently. He's decided he needs something for show-and-tell, too.

I listen from the kitchen.

"You don't have to take off your shoes, Jules," Luna says.

"They're a bit dirty, so I will," Jules says.

"ou can skid on the tiles in just socks," Noah adds. "It's fun."

"Cool goggles, Noah."

"They help me see in the dark," he says, proud she noticed.

"Do you think my jersey is cool, Jules?" Luna asks, in her most casual voice.

Jules says yes, very cool, and asks where she got it. It reminds me of how they greet Aunty Bel. The three of them walk into the kitchen together. She's in her pink socks again, and tonight they don't look so odd.

She sees me and smiles, but keeps chatting to Luna about the jersey while she sets her laptop and notebook on the table. Noah demonstrates the goggles. Jules tests them and declares she can see everything.

"But the light's on," Luna says.

Jules cups her hand over the lenses. "Nope, I can still see everything," she says.

I set the timer on the oven.

"That's nine minutes, Mom," Luna says.

"You've already used one," I say.

As the timer winds down, I wipe down counters, sort today's mail, and move a laundry basket into the laundry. I find Noah's pajamas in that second drawer that Nate couldn't find anything in. I bring them out. I hold the fridge door open as a privacy screen and he changes behind it.

"Why are you doing that, Mom?" Luna asks.

"So Noah can get changed here and still hear the conversation, "I say. He doesn't like being left out. "He'll be ready for bed time story."

"It's cold," Noah squawks.

"That's how they get dressed every day in Antarctica," Jules says.

The timer goes off. Luna looks at me pleadingly. I say, "Remember our deal," and she scrambles off to the living room with Noah close behind.

Jules and I move into the dining room. She sits down, opens up her notebook and there's a lot of messy scribbles. HOTEL? BUS? PAYMENTS -  LOZ MIGHT KNOW.  

"Full disclosure. I've never planned a tournament before," she says, setting it all down on the dining table. "Have you ever been part of something like this?"

The last coach was a man who could have done this and just didn't. He put on a helpless face and waited for someone, namely me, to do it. But this is different. Jules has genuinely tried.

"You're in luck," I say. "I used to be an events coordinator."

"You did not."

"Well, I still am, really. I've just taken a break for parenting. I've planned festivals. Some retreats. A few fundraisers." I pull my own laptop out. "Give me ten minutes."

I send four messages in quick succession. I email hotel group sales, two bus companies, the tournament office about their block-booking policy.

"One more thing," Jules says. "Ask them how far the hotel is from the fields. The girls need somewhere to warm up on game days, and I don't want them on a bus for forty minutes first."

I hadn't thought of that. I type the line and send it.  

"Okay," I say. "Now we wait."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

She stands up. "How do you take your tea?"

The kettle was boiled five minutes ago. "Sorry," I say, half rising.   

"Let me do it," she says, moving past the counter to the kitchen. "I need to feel like I did something tonight. Do you ever slow down?"

"Not really," I say, sitting back down. "I swear I have ADHD. My brain never stops."

She opens a cupboard for plates.

"Cupboard above the microwave," I say.

She pulls two mugs out. "I wish my brain did that. You looked like you even enjoyed that."

I open my mouth to deny it, but I realize I don't have to, because it's Jules. "Yeah," I say. "I did. Teabags are in the cupboard above the kettle."

The front door opens. That sounds like Nate.

"We're in the dining room!" I call out.  

He comes in with his sleeves rolled up and his laptop bag on one shoulder. His hair looks like he's run his hand through it a few times. He looks tired but handsome. I forget I'm annoyed at him.

"Hey," he says. "Sorry again."

Jules walks back in with two mugs of tea.  

"Nate, this is Jules. Luna's coach."

"The famous Jules." He puts the bag down. "Luna hasn't stopped talking about you."

"Good things, I hope." She puts the mugs down and shakes his hand. Jules is a little bit taller than him. His shoulders are broader. They look like two soccer captains shaking hands before kick-off.

"She thinks the overlapping run is the best thing since sliced bread," Nate says. "I used to play myself.  

"Oh yeah?" Jules says. "Who for?"

They chat about soccer for a bit. I wonder how they would go playing against each other. Nate used to be pretty good when he was younger.

"Where do you work, Nate?"

"The Springton Firm. We're in the Hollister Tower on Park Street."

"Oh really? My gym's in that building."

He gets this look on his face. "I had a pass there," he says. "Technically I still do."

"Life gets busy," she says.

He looks down. "I'll leave you to it. I should say hi to the kids."

He takes the stairs two at a time. Usually he kisses me. It's been on the cheek instead of my lips since that night he slept on the couch. And tonight it's no kiss at all. Maybe it's because Jules is here. No big deal.

"Are you alright?" Jules asks.

"Fine," I say, smoothing over whatever it was on my face that gave it away. I notice a notification in my emails. "The transport company has replied already."

We spend the rest of the hour on the itinerary. Upstairs, I can hear Nate's voice and the kids' laughter, the three of them in Noah's room. It sounds like a family, nothing amiss.

Just before she leaves, Jules laces her shoes, and I finally ask. "Why pink socks?"

She grins, kneeling down. "It's my favorite color."

"Is it?" Nothing else in her townhouse was pink that I recall. If I go again I will have a good look.

Jules shrugs, "Should I have a different favorite color?"

I shrug back. "You do you, boo."

Jules smiles at her lace as she accidentally pulls it all the way through. She has to start again.  

The next week, I put my foot down with Nate.   I bring it up while he's brushing his teeth.  

"I'm at Jules's tomorrow. For the tournament planning." I keep my voice level. I don't want this to turn into an argument.  

He looks down and doesn't say anything. He is also trying to keep cool.  

I continue. "These events don't happen without planning. And they've been dying to spend some time with you. They miss you."

His lips go tight. "I know. I miss them, too."

"Will you be home to be with them?"

"I'll be there."

"Promise me you won't cancel."

He looks annoyed that I asked him that. But he can't argue that it's unnecessary to ask.

"I promise," he says.

In bed, I lie on my side and wait. In usual circumstances, he'd roll over and press himself against me, one arm across my ribs, his breath warm on the back of my neck.

His hand would creep from my ribs to my breast, and his breath on my neck would become kisses. And the spooning would become more intimate.

But there's none of that tonight. Not even the spooning. I won't ask him to hold me, because he might take his pillow to the couch again.

I close my eyes.

I feel an ache down there. I look up and see Jules. Her eyes are mismatching colors.  

"Quiet," she says, even though I haven't said anything.  

"Why?" I ask.

She laughs into my mouth, and I notice her hand between my legs. The ache sharpens, the way you realize you're parched when you start drinking water.

"Nate will be home soon," I say.

"Nate who?" She smirks.

For some reason that gets me closer. My legs spread wider for her. I'm right on the edge, and she's going to-

Then an alarm is going.

I open my eyes and see white ceiling. I grab my phone off the bedstand and turn the alarm off. I just had a sex dream. I reach down and swipe my underpants. I am wet, the way I get when it's been a while and Nate teases me.

But it wasn't Nate teasing me. He hasn't been flirtatious towards me at all lately. It was Jules. I can still feel a thrum between my legs, like she was just there in person.

Nate is already up, at the dresser with his back to me, buttoning his work shirt. Across the room, the wardrobe mirror shows me my own face. My cheeks are flushed red, and my hair is stuck to my forehead. Dead giveaway.  

But Nate doesn't look. He's fixated on his cuffs.

"You okay?" he says.

"Fine."

He reaches for his tie.

I wait for him to turn around. He doesn't. I'm still warm from the sheets, and right now I don't care about walking on eggshells. I get up, cross the room, and wrap my arms around him from behind.

He stiffens, then exhales and puts a hand over mine. "Morning."

"I had an interesting dream, babe," I say into his back, letting it hang. "I can show you what I was doing in it." I glance at the clock. "If we're quick."

His thumb moves over my knuckles once. Then he lifts my hands off him, one at a time, gently. "I can't. I've got that nine o'clock meeting."

He kisses my cheek, picks up his phone, and walks out of the room, thumb already scrolling.

I stand there with my pulse still going and nowhere to put it. Two weeks of nothing, and the one time I stop tiptoeing and actually ask, I get a cheek kiss. I'm so sexually frustrated I could crawl out of my skin.

I get up and get dressed. By the time I'm packing lunches, the feeling has settled into something constant, like a tap I can't turn off. It follows me through the school run, through the grocery shop, through every email I send.

Nate keeps his promise, at least. He's home by six, and when I leave he's on the living room floor with the kids and a toy car racing set covering half the lounge room.

"Don't have too much fun without me," I say.  

"We will," Luna says. She's lying on the floor with a ramp next to her. The toy cars will be launched over her.  

In the car, I'm still sore about this morning. I'd tell Nate, but he'd have to look up from his phone.

As I pull up in front of Jules' house, I receieve a text message from Bel. A photo. Baby Mia has smiled for the first time. I need my best friend right now but I will not interrupt the happiest time of her life. God knows she deserves some happiness. "I LOVE HER ????" I write back before I get out the car.

Jules opens the door before I knock. She's in trackpants and a long-sleeved tee. Her hair is half up and half down. She's wearing running shoes with a flash of pink at the ankle. It's those socks again. She must have like ten pairs of the same pink socks.

"Did you find my place okay?"

"I've been here before."

She smiles. "You never know when you might get lost."

I smile back. She steps back to let me in. The boxes are no longer there. There are more photos on the shelf and walls now. A gray blanket is draped over the arm of the couch, and a plant on the windowsill looks healthy.

"Your place is coming together," I say.

"You think so?" she says. "My ex says I was terrible at decorating."

"Well, I think she was wrong," I say. "It suits you. It's calm, it's a bit... I don't know. Homely. Not that I know what your house should look like. I've been here twice." My eyes drift around the room again. "There's literally nothing else pink in here but your socks." 

Jules glances down at her feet then back at me, her mouth twitching. "You checked?" 

"Are you sure it's your favorite color?"

"You've only seen this room. My bedroom looks like the Barbie Dreamhouse."

I laugh. But she said bedroom. In my dream, it was never clear what room we were in. Now I imagine her on top of me, in a room with pink sheets, pink walls, pink pillows. My face warming. I'm turning pink, too.

"So!" I say, loudly. Jules flinches. I open the laptop. "The tournament."

"Jesus, I thought something was on fire," Jules says, chuckling.  

I take her through it. The hotel has replied, and so has the shuttle company. I pace the length of her living room explaining the rooming list, like I'm presenting in a conference room.

"Loz," Jules says. "You're talking really fast. Are you okay?"

"I tend to do that."

She half laughs. "You do. But this is extra. What's going on?"

I put my hands on my hips the way players do when they're waiting for a ref's decision. "It's a long story."

"You did all the work again. You didn't leave me anything. It's basically done." She sits back on the couch and drapes one arm along the top of the cushions, like she has all night. "So what's up?"

I stop pacing and think for a moment. She'd get it, surely.

"Luna told me she thinks she's gay," I say.

Jules' eyes stay on mine. I realize I have to start pacing again to actually get this thought out of my brain. "And it's fine. More than fine. My best friend is a lesbian. And when Bel got outed, I screamed at everyone who gave her shit. The entire football team, Jules. I screamed at them and then they left her alone."

I reach the bookshelf. I see a copy of Michelle Obama's autobiography lying at the top of a pile of other books. I turn on my heel and head back the other direction.

"And I would do that in a heartbeat again for Luna. But the hard part is, I feel like a fraud," I say. My hands go to my ponytail and tug it tighter, like that will hold me together.

"I tell her it's okay and safe, and I tell her that Mom will go toe to toe with anyone who gives her shit, when I don't believe that for myself." 

I stop dead in the middle of the room. My mouth stops working. I hate this part. I try again. "I'm, um. I'm b-" I clear my throat. "I'm bi, Jules."

Jules doesn't move.

I start pacing again. Standing still is unbearable. "And I need to be okay with that and let her see I'm okay with that so she knows she can be okay with herself. Am I overthinking this? Maybe I am overthinking it."

It's the first time I've said it out loud to anyone but Bel and Nate. I give Jules a moment to process my word vomit. She stays looking at me for a second, and then starts to answer. "Well, it's a big thing to-"

"Too late," I say, waving a hand. "Don't answer. I already told Nate. If you think I'm overthinking it, I don't need to know."

She puts her hands on her knees and taps her fingers, like she's thinking. "Loz," she says, in that voice she talks to the team when they've lost. "It's okay. Thank you for telling me."

I look down. For the first time in a while, my brain can't find a tangent to grab on to.

"I'm going to have a glass of wine," she says. "Do you want some?"

I accept.

Jules pours us both a glass of pinot noir. She sits next to me on the couch. I settle, tucking my legs underneath me.

She hands me my glass. Her fingers wrap around the stem of her own, long and steady. I watch them. Then my brain decides this is another moment to replay the dream. Those same fingers, inside me.

I gulp a big mouthful of wine before I realize what I'm doing.

"Slow down," she says. "You've still got to drive."

"Sorry," I say, reaching for my water bottle. "That says it all really." I gulp half the bottle, similar to Noah after soccer practice. If wine loosens my mouth, I could tell her anything, dream included.

"Does anyone else know?" she asks. "Your friend with the wife. What's her name again? Bel. Does she know?"

I think about that conversation from the morning before Bel's waters broke. Saying it out loud after all that time had felt like coughing up cobwebs. "She knows I'm bi," I say. "But she doesn't know I told Nate. She just had a baby. I can't put this on her. So, just you and Nate. But he doesn't count. Because he says I can't be bi."

"What?" Jules looks offended on my behalf.

I'm on my feet before I notice, pacing as I tell her the story, most details included. "He said, 'No, you're not.' He thinks he'd know by now, because we've been married twelve years..."

I even tell her how Nate won't touch me and is now working even longer hours. It just pours out. Somewhere in the middle I wonder if it's a good idea to unleash this waterfall on her.

Jules listens, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her eyes following me up and down the room.

"Sorry, this is a lot," I say. "Tell me at any time and I'll shut up."

"No, keep going. What podcasts?"

So I do. When I finally run out of words, I stop mid-room, breathless. "Thank you for listening to my TED talk."

She half-smiles. "He said you lied to him. You didn't." 

"Exactly," I say, sitting down again. "Now if only he would believe that."

"When did he start coming home from work late?" 

"He has always worked late, but now it's nearly every night. Somehow extra work is preferable to being around me. I've given him the ick."

"That's not on you, Loz. He's got shit he needs to work through. And shutting down like that, that just makes things worse." She's back to resting her arm on the couch cushion. "I want you to know that when I told my mother, she started crying. Eventually I had to leave home."

I feel my eyes watering. This reminds me of Bel. The day she was busted kissing a girl behind the gym, and the terror on her face when she heard the headmaster was going to call her parents. She grabbed her bag and left without signing out. I didn't see her for a week. When she came back, I knew it had been bad.

Jules slides a tissue box toward me. "I say that so you know I know your pain. I know what it's like when someone who's supposed to love you-" she pauses like she's thinking of the right words, "does something very unloving." 

I wipe away my eyes and nod. "It hurts. I just didn't think this would be his reaction."

She puts a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezes. I can't tell if it stays too long, or if I'm just primed by the dream. Either way, I feel it all the way down my arm.

"Sorry for being dramatic," I say. "You've just separated from your wife. And I'm lumping this on you."

"You're not being dramatic," she says. "You can always talk about things like this with me."

"Maybe not during a penalty shootout," I say.

She laughs. Her eyes in the lamplight are more gold than I'd thought.

My head feels clearer after unloading it. I kick off my shoes and lean back into her couch. Jules tops up my glass.  

"Only half," she says. "You're driving."

"Yes, Coach."

We talk for a while. She tells me the real reason behind the socks. "It's so boring, Loz." She winces and rubs the back of her neck. "You'll be so disappointed."

"Try me."

"Pink is easy to find. It started when I had housemates. I never lost my socks when they were bright pink. And my housemates stopped chucking their stuff in the laundry with mine, because their clothes came out dyed pink."

"You're right, that is boring." I rest my head against the cushion, grinning at her.

"But effective." She stretches her legs and wiggles her toes. "Everyone asks about them now."

"We walked past pink socks at the shops, the other day," I say. "Luna wanted to get them. I think you've got a fanclub."

Jules smiles into her glass. "That's an unintended consequence but I'll take it." 

Later on, when I leave, I feel lighter than when I arrived. She stops in the front doorway.

"For what it's worth, Luna and Noah are really lucky. I wish my mom had been like you." 

"Thanks, Jules." I look up at her. The porch light catches her face, and for the first time I notice her left eye is lighter than her right. That's exactly what I saw in the dream. I assumed I made it up. I can't stop looking. I've met one other person who has mismatched eyes and I noticed within a millisecond of talking to them. So how this detail has escaped me is fascinating. It's so subtle.

Jules doesn't look away. Something in her face says there's more she wants to say. I've seen that look before, years ago, a second before a first kiss. Neither of us moves. I'm aware of the doorframe, of how close we're standing, of my own breathing.

Wow, that wine really did go to my head.

"Goodnight, Jules," I say, and head for my car.

I sit behind the wheel for a full minute before I turn the key. I did say I'd drive.

When I get home, I suggest a date night to Nate. We haven't had one in a while. These days, any move I make feels like walking on eggshells. He needs a slow build-up, so I wait until he's sitting down with a beer, then I lean against the counter, casually.

He rubs his chin. "What about a sitter?" 

"I've already texted Mom." And I have. She hasn't replied yet but she nearly never says no.  

He doesn't look relieved. A few days later, Nate mentions he has to work on the night we planned. He says it so easily that I know he's forgotten.

I've been trying to be reasonable. Nobody should have sex on a schedule. But there hasn't been any in a long time now. Up until recently, Nate was ready the moment I was ready. I don't do this on my own.

One morning I touch myself in the shower anyway. Nate does it in there, I'm pretty sure, and his showers have been longer lately. Maybe this is the relief he gets.

But it's not for me. The light is too bright. My legs don't feel right standing. I close my eyes and try to picture something besides organizing my family and my brain shows me Jules. That smirk. Her words "Nate who?" As if Nate doesn't think about other people. I let the image stay.  

The water pounds down on my shoulders. I think about what would have happened if my alarm hadn't gone off. Jules kisses my mouth, slowly, then my neck. My hand becomes hers, circling, and my breath comes quicker. She takes her time.

I pull her closer, my fingers in her long, dark hair, so sleek it slips through them like water.

Wait. Jules's hair is shoulder-length brown. I'm careful not to mess up her hair because she has to walk past my parents on her way out. But why would Jules be walking past my parents? I'm butchering this fantasy.  

Does it really matter whose face I see? I wasn't supposed to want this, not now and not all those years ago, either. She gently bites down on my nipple. Jules, I mean, not- 

"MOOOOOOOOOM!"

Luna's shrill voice comes from just outside the door. It makes me flinch.

"NOAH PUT HIS CEREAL IN THE FISH TANK!"

It's a real emergency. I turn the water off.  

"THEY'RE TRYING TO EAT IT!"

I step out the shower and grab my towel. "Coming," I say. It's not really a loss. There were too many tangents in my brain to finish.

That night, after the kids have gone to bed, I'm preparing sandwiches for school. My phone lights up on the counter next to the chopping board. It's Jules. I wipe my hands on a tea towel and open it.

Can I come by tonight? Not about the tournament.

I feel excited at the prospect of seeing her. She hasn't even said why. I stop myself. It's weird to be excited about seeing your child's soccer coach. Especially after this morning. I still check my reflection in the microwave door anyway.

She texts when she's at the front door because the kids are asleep. Nate is still at work. It's past nine o'clock, and this is the latest he's ever been held up.

I open the door, already smiling. Jules is standing under the porch light with her hands jammed in her pockets, looking at the doormat.

"Hey," I say, my smile fading. "Is everything okay?"

She meets my eyes but drops her gaze again. "I need to tell you something," she says. "And I should have told you a week ago."

I invite her in. She takes her shoes off, like it's muscle memory. And guess what. Pink socks.

"Do you mind if I keep prepping sandwiches?" I ask.

"Not at all." Her hands go straight back in her pockets. She follows me into the kitchen and stands at the end of the counter, watching me butter bread. Her hands are in her pockets, and she's looking anywhere but me.

"What is it?"

Jules finally meets my eyes. "A couple of days after I met Nate. I was leaving the gym and saw him. In the parking lot outside the building. A woman got into his car."

I put the knife down. My face goes cold, and the kitchen seems unsteady. He would have mentioned that. If a woman had gotten into his car, he would have said so, the same way he tells me when someone cuts him off on the freeway.

It could be a work meeting. A colleague. A lift to somewhere. But he would have mentioned it.  

"It was the black SUV. The one in your driveway." Her hands come out of her pockets. She twists her hoodie strings around her fist. "I thought it was you getting in, at first. Then I saw it wasn't." She winds the string tighter. "That's all I saw. I don't know who she is. But after what you told me, it might mean something."

"This happened the week before last." I wipe my hands on a tea towel. "The day Nate and I swapped cars for a service."

"Yes."

"So, you've had this information for a while."

"Lauren, it's not like th-"

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" My voice is suddenly loud.  

Jules flinches.

"Sorry," I say, dropping my voice. I turn around and face the fridge. I look right at the photo of my kids and me when they were three and five, held up by a magnet, and take a deep breath. It doesn't work. My eyes sting, and then the tears are coming anyway, hot and fast, and I press the heel of my hand against my mouth so no sound gets out.

"I didn't want to worry you if it was nothing," she says, behind me. "You were already so worried about him."

I don't turn around. I can't let her see me like this.

"I thought that woman could have been a friend," Jules continues. "Or a family member, or a colleague, on the way to a meeting. I thought, if I say it and it's innocent, I've put that in your head for no reason. And then you told me everything, and I knew I should say something, and I just-" She exhales. "I was a coward. I'm sorry."

I nod at the fridge. My shoulders are shaking, and I can't make them stop.

The kitchen is very quiet. The late nights. The showers. The way he flinched when Jules said gym. Every piece I filed under stress slides into a different drawer, and it fits perfectly.

"Of course he's cheating." I try to whisper it, but it comes out as a hiss, thick with tears. "That's the only thing that makes sense."

"Lauren-"

"He couldn't get it up. Now he won't touch me. He leaves porn tabs open. Anyone could see them." I say it to the magnets, to the photo, to anything but her.

"Lauren," Jules says, this time more firmly. "Breathe."

I try. The breath shudders on the way in. I turn around, because what else am I going to do, keep staring at the fridge? I wipe my face with my sleeve. It doesn't help. She sees all of it. I feel pathetic.

"We've been married for twelve years," I say, crossing my arms because I don't know what to do with them. "He was different when we got together. That's why I liked him." My throat feels like it's closing.

Jules waits until I look at her. "It's okay to be angry about this."

"I'm not angry," I almost yell, and my voice cracks down the middle. "Sorry. I'm not angry." I lower my voice. "I'm shocked," I continue. "Hurt. Anger is coming, believe me. But this isn't it."

"If that's not angry," Jules says softly, already crossing the kitchen, "remind me to be somewhere else when you are."

A wet laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Then she pulls me in.

I freeze, arms still folded between us. She's holding me, and I don't know what to do about it. But it's warm in a way I wasn't ready for, and something in me wants to stay. My arms loosen, just a little, and my forehead tips forward until it's almost touching her shoulder. She smells faintly of sunscreen. I'm glad there's SPF in her moisturizer. Her chin rests on top of my head, and for a second I'm back in her doorway with the porch light on her face, neither of us moving. Nate who? Her voice, smirking, from the dream. I shove the thought away. Neither of us says anything for a while.

When she finally pulls back, she keeps one hand on my arm.

"The woman's a member at the gym," she says. "I see her most mornings. I don't know her name, but I can find out who she is."

I laugh, a horrible half-sob. "You'd do that?"

"I'd do that."

"Why?"

She thinks about it. "Because..." she stops and smiles. "I like you, Loz."

I can't tell if she means as a friend, one of the players' moms, or something else. My arms have come unfolded without my permission, and they hang at my sides like I've forgotten what they're for. My neck goes warm anyway.

"You do a lot for others," she says. "Who's looking out for you right now?"

I open my mouth and nothing comes out. She steps in and hugs me again, and this time she doesn't let go. My arms wrap around her waist. Her fingers interlock at the small of my back. My forehead drops against her collarbone. I let my weight go. I'm short and she's strong, and for once I'm not holding myself together. I can't remember the last time someone hugged me like this, without wanting something from me.

I don't know how long we stay that way. Long enough for the fridge to hum itself quiet. Long enough that I notice her breathing slow to match mine, and her fingertips moving against my spine, so light I could almost be imagining it. It sends a shiver up my back, and my breath catches. If I look up, will she be looking down at me the way she did in the dream?  

Upstairs, a floorboard creaks. Luna, going to the bathroom. Or Noah, creeping toward his iPad on charge, to play more games when he should be sleeping.

My kids could come out of their bedrooms and see this. How would I explain it? We're just hugging as friends. But is this how friends hug? Luna would tell everyone at soccer, too. We don't need to be the thing the soccer moms gossip about.

I make myself let go. My hands drop from her waist, and I step back until the counter is against my hip. Jules's arms hang in the air a moment before she lowers them, one hand lingering at my elbow a half-second longer than it needs to.

"I should go," she says. "Call me if you need anything."