I felt like I was in a maze as I tried to remember how to get back to the time clocks so I could punch out and go home for the night.

“You did a great job tonight, Kayla,” a voice said from somewhere in the darkness.

“Thanks,” I replied, having no idea who I was talking to. “Hey, I don’t remember how to get to back to the time clock.”

“Follow me; I’m out of here for the night too.”

Emerging from the darkness was Mark, one of the men who had been showing me around the plant earlier. He was sweaty and dirty from working with the machines, and his t-shirt was clinging to the muscles in his arms. I caught myself staring and forced myself to look away.

Mark smirked, and I could feel my face beginning to blush. He was younger than me by almost a decade, but he was extremely attractive. He had piercing blue eyes and the kind of soft smile that I’m sure made many women putty in his hands.

“So how did your first night go?” he asked.

“I think it went about as well as it could have. I’ve never even stepped foot in a factory before, much less worked in one.”

“I could see how it would be confusing to someone who’s never been in one.”

As we got closer to the back offices where the time clock was located, I was amused by how bright the hallway was in contrast to the darker factory. It was like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

“Thanks for bringing me back here,” I told Mark as I slid my time card into the slot.

“It’s no problem at all. Were we nice enough to get you to come back tomorrow or did we scare you off for good?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I giggled, instantly embarrassing myself. “I guess I’ll decide that on my car ride home.”

“I see. Well, if you decide to come back, I’ll show you a trick to know how to get around here. Believe it or not, there is a method to the madness as far as the layout goes.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“It’s a date then,” he said, extending his hand for me to shake.

When I reached up, I noticed that he was checking out my ring finger, which was completely bare at the moment. I always remove my jewelry when I take a shower, and after the fight with Dillon that morning, I’d forgotten to put any of it back on.

Noticing him looking at my ring finger made me look down at his. There was no ring on his either. I could have told him I was married right then, but what if his looking at my hand was all in my head? Maybe I was just hoping he was looking because it would be fun to get some form of attention from a man since my husband sure as hell doesn’t pay any attention to me anymore.

Mark walked me back to the front of the building, where I grabbed my lunch box and the bundle of papers that had been given to me by human resources.

* * *

I hoped that the fight Dillon and I had that morning would be blown over by the time I got home. There were a few times at work that I’d debated calling him to tell him that I may have overreacted, but I decided giving him a little bit of space was probably a much better idea.

During the drive home, I reflected back on the first night of my new job. I had been under the impression that it was strictly office work, but there was a lot more to it than that. I also had to walk around the plant several times, stopping in at all the different departments to see if any outstanding issues needed to be attended to. If so, I opened a ticket to take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.

In many ways, I enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t stuck in the office all night. Sure, I got lost in the plant several times and had to ask people where the hell I was, but I got to talk to so many people and have actual conversations.

Dillon had been right about one thing. The factory was a complete sausage fest. I knew that the majority of employees there would be men simply due to the type of physical work that is done there, but I had no idea how skewed the numbers would be. On the 11 am to 11 pm shift, I was one of only three women in the entire plant. It was crazy, and while I planned on telling him all about my first day, that was a piece of information I was going to keep to myself.

As I pulled my car into the garage, I was surprised by how excited I was to tell my husband about my night. I worried that he might not care or may not want to hear it, but I’d never know if I didn’t talk to him.

When Dillon and I first met, and for several years after getting married, we were basically best friends. We spent all of our free time together, talked non-stop, and could not get enough of each other. I wondered where things went so wrong. I missed our talks about nothing at all that would last for hours and all the fun we used to have together and wondered if it was gone forever or if there was any way we could ever get it back.

Thinking about the state of our marriage caused tears to begin welling up in my eyes, which was the last thing I wanted. There would be time to talk about our marriage later. On that night, I wanted everything to be happy.

When I walked into the house, the house was dark except for the small foyer light, which Dillon must have left on for me. Figuring he was downstairs in his office, I put my things down on the table and made my way down, but I could see it was dark down there before I even got to the bottom of the stairs.

“Honey?” I called out, wondering where he was, but I was met with only silence.

It wasn’t until I made it to the living room that I heard the faint sounds of the television coming from the bedroom. I poked my head in and saw him sleeping soundly. He must have fallen asleep watching sports highlights or something. He looked so cute and peaceful. I decided that when I climbed into bed, I was going to scoot right up to him and fall asleep on his chest, something that we hadn’t done in as long as I could remember.

Starving, I walked back into the kitchen to have some of the lasagna I’d made for Dillon. I was honestly surprised to see that he’d left a note just like I’d made for him.

Sweetheart,

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to make sure I had something to eat when I got home. You didn’t have to do that, but I’m grateful you did. You and I both know that when it comes to cooking, it was not a skill I was blessed with. You on the other hand…

The lasagna was delicious, and I even had a glass of wine with it because you would have made me do the same had you been home.

I feel like a giant jackass about what happened this morning and think we should make some time to talk. Tonight, I just want to hear about your day. I’ll be in the bedroom waiting to hear all about it.

I love you, babe,

Dillon

The note made me feel something that I hadn’t felt in a long time: butterflies in the pit of my stomach. In the back of my mind, I knew this sweetness probably wasn’t going to last, but I was going to hold on to the feeling as long as I possibly could.

I thought it was also sweet that Dillon had planned on waiting up for me because he actually wanted to know how my first night of work went. No matter what kind of issues we’d gone through, I still loved that man and knew we could get through whatever was put in front of us. Of course, I’d been wondering if he felt the same, but seeing what he wrote to me was a bit of needed reinforcement.

While I ate, I started going through all of the paperwork that had been given to me when I arrived at work that afternoon. There were your typical handbooks, policies and procedures, phone logs, contact numbers, and things like that.

Near the back of the manilla folder, I found all of the paperwork about benefits. There was medical coverage from day one, and while my husband is a doctor, it would come in handy if I was ever in any kind of catastrophic accident that would require extended hospital stays and things like that. It would basically mean not having to go bankrupt while I recovered.

There was also information about investments, 401k, other retirement plans, and things of that nature. Since I hadn’t worked in so long, I decided I was going to set aside additional money out of each check to try to catch up.

I needed to go online to pick which plans I wanted to opt into so I figured I’d go down to the office and jump on my computer to take care of that before I went to bed. First and foremost, I wanted to relax. I thought about slipping into a hot bubble bath, but I really just wanted to be close to my husband, so I opted to creep into our room and put on some comfortable pajamas.

When I turned to walk out of the room, I noticed that Dillon’s laptop was lying on the floor next to his side of the bed. Instead of having to walk downstairs, I decided to just use his computer right there in bed.

After putting in his “secret code,” code, which just consists of the two of our names together, the laptop came to life. It took a minute for my mind to register what was on the screen in front of me, but once I figured it out, the computer slipped from my hands and fell onto the mattress.

He’s been looking at porn. Fucking porn! I’m not a prude by any means, but I haven’t been getting any attention in the bedroom, and I felt like I’d just discovered the reason why. He’d rather look at porn than have sex with his wife. That made me feel so shitty about myself and had me questioning what I was doing wrong.

I took a deep breath and composed myself before picking the laptop up off the mattress. I wanted to see what was taking my place. I needed to see what kind of porn was so important that he’d rather jerk off watching it than having sex with me.

The name of the website was “Real Cheating Wives, ” and it seemed to revolve around videos where the wife is cheating on her husband.

I wondered what kind of sick thrill he was getting out of that. Earlier that day he was giving me shit about the fact that I was doing my hair and makeup for work and then he was watching videos where the wife was cheating. Did he think I got this job to find men to cheat on him with? Was that something that turned him on in some sick way?

What was I supposed to do? I wanted to wake him up and ask him what his problem was. I wanted to know why he was looking at that kind of thing when I was right there whenever he wanted. What was he getting out of the porn that he wasn’t getting with me? I really wanted to do that, but I didn’t. I needed to sleep on it so I could figure out the best way to handle it.

I did want to know exactly what he was watching so I muted the volume and pressed play on the video had up. There was one thing that immediately jumped out at me. The cheating wife in the video looked exactly like me.