Touchdown - Leslie North Page 0,44

too much.

Just after she’d sent her order through, Maxwell called.

“Hello?” She suddenly brimmed with excitement to see him again. To congratulate that sexy, hard-working athlete the best way she knew how. And if he got home early enough, they could have their fun before she went home for the night.

“Hey, Jill.” He sounded exhausted.

“Congratulations on the big win!”

“Thanks.” He sighed. “It was brutal. Hey, would you mind staying with the kids a bit longer tonight? James wants to go over some things once we’re done with the press down here.”

“Yeah, of course,” she said, trying to ignore how crestfallen she felt. “Is everything okay?”

“Thanks, Jill. Gotta run.” The line went dead.

She frowned, looking at her phone like it might light up at any second with a clarifying text from Maxwell. Her heart hammered as confusion began to set in. That had certainly been odd. He was never that quick or curt with her.

He was distracted—it had to be that. She repeated it to herself a few times as she worked to reintegrate into the cleaning and playtime flow. But it was hard, since her mind insisted on homing in on the super-short interaction and extracting something meaningful from it.

And the only thing she could come up with was the fact that this was an emerging trend. One that had started a couple weeks ago. One that proved to her that Maxwell was pulling away, and whatever flimsy, fun, or flirty affair they’d started was headed for a quick end.

After all, she barely saw him anymore. And it hadn’t been that way in the beginning. Now, even post-game, when the team was supposedly in the clear, he had more review with James? She gritted her teeth as she focused on cleaning the stove, expelling big bursts of air as she worked over her thoughts and the cooking grime. Even when they saw each other recently, things felt strained. Quiet, somehow. And it just made her worry that something was definitely wrong.

But what? She scrubbed at the stovetop so hard her elbow hurt. This situation reminded her of something. Even though she didn’t know what was wrong, she certainly had been in this position before. With her ex. She’d frequently hung suspended between certainty and doubt, for days and weeks at a time, poring over their interactions and texts, wondering what she’d said or done wrong to provoke the coldness, the iciness, the distance.

With her ex, there had been times when she was away for work, and he’d go quiet on her for weeks. Eventually, it just became a thing to adapt to. To wait out. Was Maxwell the same way? Were all men like this?

She blew out another frustrated puff of air, stepping back to admire the sparkling stove.

“Touchdown!” shrieked Cameron from the living room. She peeked into the room to check on them. All was well—they were still snacking on their cheese crackers from earlier, happy as clams with the blocks and cars and general mess of toddler life around them.

Jill returned to the kitchen, trying to find another appliance that she could use to relieve her frustration. The sink. That needed scrubbing down. Along with her memories. She got to work trying to clean Maxwell’s big deep sink, finding strange remnants of toddler-related crud there. And sure, she could hire this out. Maxwell had a cleaning lady come twice a month. But Jill needed the distraction—and the chance to focus.

Because the other thing that freaked her out about Maxwell’s shift of behavior was that, if she went by what she’d learned with her ex, it meant only one thing.

Maxwell was cheating on her.

When Jill had discovered her ex-husband’s infidelities, she’d found a slew of supporting evidence: his long weekend “work trips” that coincided with hotel rooms on the personal credit card. Extravagant purchases that were traced back to diamonds and necklaces for his mistresses. Even cosigning on a personal loan for a woman named Marcy.

What if this “work review” with James was just the one shot Maxwell had seen to take his cheerleader girlfriend out for dinner?

Her stomach plummeted to the ground as she finished up the sink.

You’re being ridiculous.

She tested the thought out enough times that the words stopped making sense. After all, when would Maxwell have time for a mistress?

But she’d told herself the same thing countless times while struggling with her husband’s strange behavior, back before it had been verified. How could a busy surgeon have time for a mistress? She’d asked herself the question ad