Chapter 1 - The Ultimatum
“I’m going out tonight.”
Tasha said it like she was telling me the weather.
I looked up from the electric bill in my hand.
“Going where?”
“Club Nova.”
My wife stood near our bedroom mirror in a fitted black dress, fastening one gold earring while checking her lipstick.
“With who?”
“Monica, Kiara, and some women from work.”
I stared at her.
The nightclub wasn’t what bothered me first.
It was the way she announced it.
No conversation.
No mention of the movie night she had promised Jayden.
No acknowledgment that we had barely spoken properly in days.
Just a statement.
I put the bill down.
“Are you telling me or asking me?”
Tasha looked at me through the mirror.
Then she laughed.
“I’m informing you.”
Something tightened in my chest.
“I don’t need permission to go out with my friends, Damon.”
She was right about one thing.
She wasn’t my child.
But marriage wasn’t supposed to mean two people stopped considering each other either.
Six months earlier, this argument probably would never have happened.
Six months earlier, I had still been a construction supervisor.
I woke before sunrise.
Managed thirty men.
Came home exhausted.
Then my company lost two major contracts.
Half our division disappeared in one Friday afternoon.
Including me.
For the first time since I was twenty-two, I didn’t have a job.
At first, Tasha hugged me.
“We’re a team.”
Three weeks later, the tone changed.
“You’re home anyway.”
“You can handle that.”
“My paycheck is carrying us right now.”
“Maybe you should stop being so picky about jobs.”
Every sentence was small.
Together, they made me feel smaller.
I stood.
“Tasha.”
She grabbed her purse.
“Please don’t start.”
“I’m trying to talk to you.”
“You’re trying to control me.”
“No.”
“You asked if I needed permission.”
“I asked because you’re talking to me like I’m a roommate.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I work all week. I deserve one night out.”
“I never said you didn’t.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“The problem is that you already decided nothing I say matters.”
Her face hardened.
“Maybe I’m tired of asking permission for normal things.”
“Name one thing I’ve stopped you from doing.”
She paused.
“That’s not the point.”
“It is if you’re accusing me of controlling you.”
I lowered my voice.
Our ten-year-old son, Jayden, was upstairs.
“I don’t want a servant.”
I pointed between us.
“I want a wife who remembers we’re still partners.”
Tasha gave me a bitter smile.
“Partners?”
“Yes.”
“I’m paying most of the bills.”
There it was.
I stared at her.
She seemed to regret saying it, but she didn’t take it back.
“So that decides who has more power now?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You just did.”
“No, Damon. You’re insecure because you lost your job.”
I felt the words hit exactly where she aimed them.
“I lost a paycheck.”
I stepped closer.
“I didn’t lose my place in this family.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“What place?”
“I’m still your husband.”
“And I’m still your wife.”
“Then treat me like one.”
She grabbed her coat.
“I’m going.”
I looked at the door.
Then at her.
“Tasha, if you walk out after talking to me like this, we have a much bigger problem than a nightclub.”
She laughed.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to do anything to you.”
“Good.”
“But I’m also not pretending this is normal.”
Her hand reached toward the lock.
I spoke before she opened it.
“If you leave tonight, come back tomorrow when we’re calm.”
She slowly turned.
“For what?”
My anger had carried me farther than wisdom should have allowed.
But the words came anyway.
“To decide whether you’re packing your things.”
Her face changed completely.
“You’re threatening to throw me out because I want to go dancing?”
“No.”
My voice remained quiet.
“I’m telling you I won’t live in a marriage where one person gets to humiliate the other because she earns more money this month.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“If I dressed up right now and told you I was going drinking with women from my old job, would you say have fun?”
Her face tightened.
“That’s different.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course.”
She shook her head.
“You’re twisting this.”
“Then answer me.”
She didn’t.
Footsteps sounded on the staircase.
“Mom?”
Jayden stood halfway down in dinosaur pajamas.
Tasha immediately lowered her purse.
I felt sick.
He had heard us.
“Hey, buddy,” I said.
He looked at Tasha’s dress.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“I was going out with friends.”
His forehead wrinkled.
“But you said movie night.”
Tasha closed her eyes.
“I forgot.”
Jayden looked wounded.
“You never forget movie night.”
“I’m sorry.”
Then he looked at me.
“Are you guys getting divorced?”
Tasha answered immediately.
“No.”
I didn’t.
That was a mistake.
Jayden noticed.
“Dad?”
Before I could fix it, Tasha’s phone rang.
She pulled it from her purse.
MONICA.
Tasha rejected the call.
A message appeared immediately.
I wasn’t trying to read it.
The screen happened to face me.
WE’RE ALREADY HERE.
AND YES, HE CAME.
Tasha’s face went white.
Everything inside me went quiet.
“Who came?”
She locked the screen.
“Damon.”
“Who is he?”
Jayden remained on the staircase.
I looked at him.
“Buddy, go upstairs.”
“But—”
“Please.”
He hesitated.
Then disappeared.
His bedroom door closed.
I turned back to my wife.
The late work dinners suddenly came back to me.
The password she had recently added to her phone.
The coworker she used to mention constantly and then stopped mentioning altogether.
A man named Adrian.
“Tasha.”
She looked away.
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
“Is Monica talking about Adrian?”
Her silence answered before her mouth did.
I stepped backward.
“Oh, my God.”
“Damon, listen.”
“Is Adrian waiting for you at that club?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“Then tell me what I should think.”
She squeezed her purse.
“It’s complicated.”
I laughed once.
Nothing about it was funny.
“Of course it is.”
She stepped toward me.
“I haven’t slept with him.”
I froze.
I hadn’t asked that.
The fact that she answered it anyway made my stomach drop.
“Tasha.”
Tears suddenly filled her eyes.
“Please.”
I stared at the woman I had loved for thirteen years.
Then I asked the only question that mattered.
“What happened between you and Adrian?”
Her lips parted.
But before she answered, her phone buzzed again.
This time, the message came from Adrian himself.
BRING THE FOLDER.
WE NEED TO GET OUR STORY STRAIGHT BEFORE MONDAY.
I looked at Tasha.
May you like
“What story?”
And the fear on her face told me the night was about to become much worse than an affair.
