One Weekend with the Billionaire novel Chapter 50

Waiting for Jeff to get home from work is excruciating, especially since he is late. Normally, he gets off at 5:00, and the commute takes about an hour and a half. I can usually count on him walking in sometime around 6:30. Unless he’s stopped for a drink or something like that, which happens frequently enough. At least, I’d always assumed when he’d sent me a text to let me know he was stopping at a bar that that’s what he was doing. Now, knowing about his infidelity, I have to wonder if maybe that wasn’t what he was doing at all. I am also questioning all of those late nights he’d spent at the office or meetings that had been scheduled

The meatloaf has been done for about two hours. Normally, I wait for Jeff before I eat. Tonight, I am not hungry. I eat anyway. I decide not to wait for him because he doesn’t deserve that. Whatever it is he’s doing, whether it’s grabbing a drink or two because he’s stressed, or paying some whore to lick her pussy, I don’t deserve to have to sit here and wait on him and eat my dinner cold because he hasn’t even had the decency to let me know that he’s coming home late.

The idea that Braxton would never do this to me comes to mind, and even though I try to push it away, to say to myself, "Braxton probably has to work late frequently," I keep coming back to the idea that Braxton loves spending time with me and would do his best to get home as soon as he could not because it is the polite thing to do but because he wants to see me.

I have to wonder if that would wear off eventually. Would he eventually stop wanting to see me? Would he eventually think, "I would rather see my friends than Julia,"? It could happen. It’s hard for me to fathom, but it is a possibility that Braxton might grow tired of me. Does he really even know me now? What if it is just the imagined version of me that he is interested in and not the actual me?

It’s a little past 8:00, and Jeff comes stumbling in. He’s had more than one drink. I think of the money problems he claims we are having. How many dollars’ worth of liquor did he drink tonight alone?

He looks at me, sitting in my spot at the dining room table, his plate sitting on the table in front of his chair, a dishcloth over it. The meatloaf and vegetables I’ve prepared have long gone cold. His eyes flicker from me to the plate and back again. He drops his briefcase by the door, loosens his tie, takes off his jacket and tosses it on top of his briefcase. Again, his eyes flicker from the plate to me and then back again. "Heat it up," he says.

I haven’t seen my husband in over three days, not since Friday morning, and the first thing he says to me is a command. I look at him for a second, thinking, "Heat it up your fucking self!" but I don’t say it. I push my chair back, take his plate over to the microwave, and press the appropriate buttons. I’m not sure he’d even know what to press to make it warm and not cooked again.

Normally, I attempt conversation at this juncture. "How was your day?" "Did you do anything particularly interesting today?" Or I’d ask about his coworkers. "How Is James?" "Did Susan’s meeting with her client go well?" depending upon what he might’ve told me the day before. Not that he ever willingly shared his day. It was more, "You think you’ve got it rough! Susan’s got to meet with a client tomorrow, and this guy’s a fucking asshole. At least you don’t have to go out and have a job where you’re constantly forced to meet with fucking assholes." Today, I say nothing. Today, I heat up meatloaf and bring it over to him. I set the plate on the table where he is now sitting, a can of beer nearly empty. I usually sit down and keep him company. Of course, I have usually waited to eat. Tonight, I don’t feel like watching my husband eat his dinner. I go into the other room.

Jeff does not like this. "Where are you going?" he shouts after me. "Come back here! Aren’t you going to eat?"

"I already did," I say, trying to keep my voice calm. "Almost two hours ago." I stop behind him, my hands fisted at my sides.