When Logan returned home later that evening, he realized how tight his neck and shoulders felt. He put his left ear to his shoulder, then his right to stretch it out. He suddenly felt…wiped. Like he hadn’t slept in days. He was more spent from this long, stressful day than he thought. He was going to skip his nightly glass of wine and turn in early, he decided.

He hung his keys on the key holder by the door and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He started to set it on the shelf next to the door when the screen lit up. He had several missed messages and calls from Natalie, and she had just sent one more.

“Oh shit,” he closed his eyes tight. He had put his phone on silent after making sure Natalie got home safe earlier. He needed the break from her. But, he had completely forgotten to turn it back on vibrate after taking time to cool down.

He unlocked the screen and was about to click on his messages when another popped up. To his surprise, this latest one was from Hazel:

“I just wanted to thank you for the apology earlier. And the company. It meant a lot to me.”

He smiled. But the smile instantly faded after another message popped on the screen. It was another one from Natalie:

“WHERE ARE YOU? WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING ME?”

Logan’s finger hovered over the message. He was hesitant to click on it and let her know that he had seen the messages. He was way too exhausted to deal with this. But maybe that’s what marriage was all about, he thought, doing things you don’t necessarily feel like doing to help your spouse. He opened the messages.

The first several were calm and normal. She had sent pictures of herself modeling the pieces he had purchased for her. But when he didn’t respond within, oh, ten minutes according to the timestamps, that’s when she started freaking out and sending message after message, each one more angry than the last:

“What are you up to?”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? Where the hell are you?”

“YOU ASSHOLE. ANSWER ME.”

“YOU’RE WITH SOME OTHER WOMAN, AREN’T YOU? YOU CHEATING SCUMBAG.”

And so on. She had left a couple voicemails as well, but dealing with the texts was enough for tonight. Logan decided he would listen to them another time…or just delete them.

“I’m sorry, my phone was on silent and I forgot to turn it back on. I was getting pizza, that’s all,” he typed as fast as he could and pushed send.

“PIZZA FOR TWO HOURS? BULLSHIT.” Nat’s response came almost immediately.

Well, she wasn’t wrong about that, Logan thought. After his pizza, the second hour that he was unreachable was spent driving around thinking about Natalie. He was trying to sort out his thoughts and feelings about her. Why was he staying in this? Ever since Dylan had asked him that he hadn’t really been able to come up with a great answer.

And, if he was being honest, he was also trying to sort out his thoughts and feelings about Hazel.

But neither of those confessions would help right now.

He pulled the pizza receipt from his wallet, snapped a photo, and sent it to Natalie. “See? My dinner with the date and time and everything. I’m really sorry I missed all of your messages.”

She read the message but didn’t respond. He tried another tactic: “You look really pretty in those photos. Those shoes look great on you.”

He saw three little dots at the bottom of the screen. Finally, “Thank you,” came through.

“I need to sleep, I hope you have a good night. Sleep sweet.” He sent.

She opened the message, but did not respond. At least she wasn’t yelling at him anymore, he thought. Maybe he would visit her at the studio tomorrow with some flowers to smooth things over.

He went to his bedroom and stripped down to his boxers. He climbed into bed, beyond exhausted. He laid on his left side, then his right, then ended up on his back. He could not turn off the one nagging thought that was running through his mind:

Was this how the rest of their life was going to be?

---

The next morning, my desk was finally clean, but I sat in Logan’s office to start anyways. We still had just a few things to work out with his wife’s party. I spread out the final guest list and one of the party invitations on his desk so he could look at them when he arrived.

I looked at my watch. 8:00 am on the dot. I looked out the door of his office. He was always, always here before 8. Where was he?

I paced back and forth in his office, trying to think about all the rational reasons he might be late, instead of the worst possible scenarios that kept popping in my head.

“He’s not dead in a ditch somewhere,” I muttered to myself. “Maybe he didn’t hear his alarm. Or the line at the coffee shop was longer than normal. Or…or…” I looked at my watch again. 8:05. “Oh my god, he’s dead for sure!”

I pulled out my phone to call him, but right before I hit the call button he came rushing in.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” he said, struggling to catch his breath.

I took in the sight before me. Logan looked…rough. Really rough. His suit was wrinkled, his shirt only partially buttoned (and the buttons that were buttoned did not match up correctly), his tie was around his neck but not tied, his shoelaces were undone and I noticed his socks did not match. His hair was disheveled. He looked like he had slept in those clothes and just came straight to work from his bed.

“Sir, are you…is everything…” I started.

“I’m fine, I just forgot to set my alarm last night,” he explained. “How do I look?”

“Um…” I grimaced. “Well…I can’t to lie to you sir, it’s not great.”

He frowned and pulled out his phone. He turned his camera on and held it up to see himself. “My god.” He said. “Can you postpone my 8:30 meeting? I’m going to need a minute.”

“Of course,” I said.

I watched as he walked swiftly to the bathroom, his eyes on the ground the entire way. I caught Maria’s eyes from across the room. She looked at me wide-eyed, then rushed over.

“Was that…” she started.

I nodded. “He said he forgot to set his alarm last night.”

“Uh huh,” Maria said. “There is definitely more to that story. You don’t show up looking like that because you missed your alarm.”

I shrugged. “Well if there is more, I doubt he’ll tell me.”

“Shame,” she shook her head. “He still looked damn good though.”

I shook my head at her.

“What? He did! Maybe even better than normal,” she said, biting her lip.

“Okay, you’re getting drool on my shoes. You’re a semi-taken woman, you know,” I gave her a small push back towards her desk.

“Yeah, yeah…” she said as she walked away.

I heard a buzz and turned. Logan had left his phone on his desk, and the screen was lit up. I looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then ran over to look.

It was from his wife:

“You have a lot of making up to do for last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were out with that whore of a secretary of yours.”