“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“You don’t remember.”
Adrian frowned.
“Last February.”
He searched.
“You came home from Denver.”
Still nothing.
“I told you I wanted to go back to work.”
He remembered partly.
“You said maybe marketing consulting.”
“Yes.”
“I said that sounded good.”
“You said, ‘Sounds good, babe,’ while answering an email.”
Adrian looked away.
Simone continued:
“Two weeks later I brought up the wellness studio.”
Ah.
That he remembered.
Not clearly.
Enough.
Simone and one of her friends had discussed opening a women-focused wellness studio combining fitness classes, physical therapy partnerships, nutrition coaching, and childcare.
Adrian thought it sounded risky.
He said the market was saturated.
He offered to connect her with someone who could write a business plan.
Then forgot.
“You laughed.”
Adrian looked at her.
“I didn’t laugh.”
“You smiled.”
“That’s different.”
“Not when somebody is telling you the first thing she has wanted for herself in years.”
Adrian swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
Simone stared.
The apology seemed to disarm her more than defense would have.
He continued:
“I should have listened.”
“Yes.”
“That did not make you sleep with the landscaper.”
Her face hardened again.
There.
Both truths.
Adrian wanted them separated carefully.
His failures.
Her choices.
He would not let guilt combine them into one moral account where the affair disappeared because he worked too much.
Simone whispered:
“I know.”
“How did it start?”
“Do you really want that?”
“No.”
He thought.
“Yes.”
She looked toward the windows.
“Malik was working here last August.”
“I know.”
“I was outside.”
“You talk to contractors. Normal.”
“Yes.”
“He asked about some resistance bands I had on the porch.”
Adrian waited.
“He used to train athletes.”
“Okay.”
“He had a gym before COVID.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It closed.”
She continued.
They talked.
First fitness.
Then business.
Malik had been trying to rebuild enough savings to open another small training studio.
Simone told him her wellness idea.
He did not laugh.
Adrian felt the sentence without reacting.
“He asked questions.”
“What kind?”
“Real ones.”
Location.
Client type.
Membership model.
Childcare.
Insurance.
Physical therapy partnerships.
“He treated it like it could exist.”
Adrian nodded.
“I didn’t.”
“No.”
“That matters.”
“Yes.”
“Still not permission.”
“I know.”
They looked at each other.
For the first time in perhaps years, neither was trying to win the whole argument with one fact.
Then Adrian noticed something on the counter.
A folder.
Dark blue.
Partially hidden beneath Simone’s laptop.
“What's that?”
Her face changed.
Adrian saw it immediately.
He stood.
“Simone.”
“It’s nothing.”
He almost laughed.
“Really?”
He reached for it.
She grabbed the folder first.
Adrian stopped.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
His anger arrived fully for the first time.
“Do not.”
Simone stared.