ONE
“I think we should see other people.”
Samantha Parker dropped her fork, right onto the salad she was eating, and looked across the table at her husband of twenty-two years.
At that familiar face saying the most unfamiliar words.
Will Parker was her soulmate. She’d known that since she was sixteen years old and he’d kissed her on a school field trip to the Rock Museum.
She had never cared much about rocks.
But she’d cared a lot about whether or not the boy she considered one of her best friendsliked herliked her, like she did him. She’d only had to wait a breath between her confession and his kiss—her first kiss and his—to have the answer.
That they felt the same.
They had felt the same every day since then.
She’d writtenW + S 4 Evaon her binder. So had he. He’d taught her to drive a stick. And well…he’d…taught her todrive a stick.
When they’d guiltily broken all the rules of their churchy upbringing and had sex for the first time at seventeen, they’d both owned that choice. They’d both wanted it.
When they’d found out at eighteen that their passion had actually been recklessness and Sam found herself pregnant, they’d been united in knowing what choice had to be made.
They’d had a small wedding with only family, and at their high school graduation, they were a married couple with a baby on the way and a mountain of small-town gossip and disapproval buzzing around them.
But they were together, so it had never mattered.
Every choice, every fork in the road, every moment, Samantha and Will had been one. Because they were soulmates.
When Will had said he wanted to go to dinner tonight, she’d been certain it was an affirmation of sorts. Their youngest child, Ethan, had told them he wasn’t coming home this summer because he was doing a study abroad program. Sam had been sad about that, initially. There was something…good about it too. Ethan was launched. They’d done it. She and Will were empty nesters. They’d crossed a finish line, and they’d done it at forty, because that was what happened when you did everything early.
It had been hard sometimes, no doubt about that. But they’d been fine with it because they’d weathered it together.
Together.
Like always.
So why wouldn’t she think they were going out to celebrate a job well done? A life well lived? Finally going on an extended vacation like they’d planned to do when they’d graduated, but hadn’t because they were having a baby, and they were young and broke anyway.
Then they’d been raising three boys and growing businesses and organizing life.
They werestillyoung, andnotbroke, and didn’t have kids at home to worry about, so it was the ideal time to travel, and she’d been absolutely sure that would be the topic of discussion for the evening.
Not…
That.
She…laughed. And laughed and laughed. She didn’t mean to, but what else was there to do? It was a joke. Ithadto be a joke.
She decided then and there that it was, and that was how she would respond.
“Yeah, sure. Seeing other people. How about Elysia? She might be ready to date again by now.”
He did not laugh. He looked…worried. Her stomach went so tight she could hardly breathe.
“Sam… I’m serious.”
He could have just punched her. She would have been less shocked. But Will would never punch her. He would never hurt her.
