Daniel rubbed his thumb across his wedding band, a habit she had watched for twelve years of marriage and never fully decoded. "Not with him in the next room listening through the pipes."
"Then we talk in the bedroom. Or outside. Or you explain right now in a voice he can't hear." Her green eyes did not soften. "Daniel. Another woman's bag. Under your clothes. You told him not to open it. What am I supposed to think?"
"You're supposed to let me finish a sentence before you write the ending."
"I've been writing endings for the last thirty seconds," she said. "None of them are kind."
He exhaled. The fire popped. Somewhere in the cabin's bones, the old wood settled.
"It isn't what you think," he said.
"That sentence," Elise replied, "has never once in the history of marriage meant anything good."
He almost smiled, and then did not. "Give me twenty minutes. Let me get him settled with a movie. Then I'll tell you everything. No editing. No 'we'll talk later.' Everything."