Page 2 of Cursing My Cheating Husband

“I’ll catch the highlights tomorrow,” he said, without even looking back.

And at that, he closed the bathroom door, leaving me standing there in a cheerleader costume that felt suddenly pathetic, surrounded by congealing chicken wings.

First, the hiss of the shower came through the door, quickly followed by harsh, grinding music. Maddox loved to blast angry metal when he showered.

He loved it much more than the thought of a night with me, apparently.

I wanted to cry. We were twenty-nine years old! We’d only been married for three years and together for four! Our anniversary had been last month, and he hadn’t acknowledged it with anything but a quick peck on the lips that morning! We hadn’t had sex for a month! I had spent all week learning about offensive strategies and player statistics so he’d actually talk to me about something, and it had taken him one second to decide he had no interest in any of it!

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Just hold on until he leaves.

I dropped onto the bed, the cheerleader skirt riding up ridiculously. How had we gotten here? He used to text me all the time during the day with random thoughts... a song that reminded him of me, or something funny a coworker said. During movie nights, he’d pull me into his lap just because he wanted me close. That had been our life. Until our first anniversary. And then, this slow drift had started. He always reassured me it didn’t mean anything. It was just a consequence of how demanding his career was. And I knew his responsibilities were real. He had to fight for promotions, and he had to put the hours in.

But I needed consideration too. How could he stand the distance that had crept into our marriage?

His phone dinged with an incoming text notification. I didn’t bother to look. His incoming messages didn’t display on the lock screen, and you had to unlock it with his passcode to see anything.

Not that I’d ever felt the need to search his devices before. I trusted Maddox. I didn’t need to sift through his private communications to know there was nothing to worry about.

Right?

I didn’t want to believe Maddox could be cheating on me. Our declining sex life didn’t have to mean that. And I couldn’t point to anything else suspicious.

But when I remembered his libido at the beginning… that man had struggled to be satisfied with sex once a day. He had never needed lingerie or costumes or elaborate setups to want me. That man had pounced on me when I was unshowered and hungover, or when I’d been sick for days.

I took in my reflection again. I looked good! Or good enough, anyway. The man I married would have taken one look at me in this outfit and forgotten all about client drinks. He would have said Duke could handle it himself.

I was staring at his phone. I had seen Maddox enter his passcode once, and I’d memorized it. Just in case of emergencies. But I had never used it.

I had never even thought of using it.

Because I trusted him completely.

Or I had. Until that moment.

I grabbed the phone before I could have second thoughts. My trembling fingers hastily pounded in the code.

And as his messaging app opened, my world fell apart. The tears I’d been trying to hold back tore out of me like I was being gutted with an inversion spell.

The text that had just come in was a nude selfie of a woman I’d never seen before. She was younger than me, more attractive, and infinitely more enticing than my sad cheerleader imitation.

I might throw up.

I didn’t want to look at any more of this.

Yet as I thought that, I was simultaneously scrolling back through their message thread.

Her name was Gwen. The conversation was months long, at least. I couldn’t bring myself to scroll back far enough to see if it had been years. Their message thread was filled with nudes of her from every possible angle.

And from Maddox to her, pic after pic of his enormous dick. So much exposed skin, mixed in with confirmations of the times and places for their meetups.

It was too much. I clicked back onto the main message screen.

Where I immediately spotted another text thread a few below the one with Gwen. This one with someone named Chelsea.

He’d never mentioned a Chelsea to me.

Knowing I’d regret it, I clicked on that thread as well. It opened with a nude of Chelsea, as provocative and alluring as the one from Gwen.