Every Thursday Night

0:00Whether it's slots, or live dealers, SpinQuest.com has the fun and action you're looking for, with SpinQuest exclusives, Blackjack, Roulette, Baccaro, and even live dice with craps and bubble craps. The games never stop, so you don't have to. And right now, new users get $30 coin packs for just $10. Play now at SpinQuest.com SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Boydware prohibited, visit SpinQuest.com for more details. Hello, and welcome to Cheating all the time. Glad you are here. Let's get into this next crazy cheat. On a Thursday night in April, I sit hunched in a dark, the dull orange glow from the parking lot lights flickering across my dash. The Baker resign buzzes faintly, throwing else-shaped shadows onto the rain-street windshield. It's late, later than Josh ever used to keep me waiting, so I'm already restless heart-pattering, head drumming with the old ache of suspicion I'd almost forgotten I could feel. Eight years of partnership, you'd think you'd skip this part out.

1:02But here I am, watching the windows, the same way you'd watch a storm and wonder when it'll finally break. The last lights inside blink off, one by one. I spot Josh's silhouette moving behind the countertoll slouch, familiar but there's another figure with him. Lilo, our new supplier, in a smart jacket and rain boots, her ponytail swinging, laughing at something I can't hear. She reaches toward Josh, her hand landing on his forearm, staying as she says something close. I see him lean into the touch, his face and guarded. Thursday nights like this used to be, eyes me beside him, shoulders brushing as we scubbed fire from the floor. Now I'm in the parking lot unseen, like a stranger. I press my palms to the steering wheel, chest and steady, as Lilo finally releases Josh, gives that strange private smile, and disappears into the night. Josh double checks the lock, heads the other way. For a second, he glances out at the lot, I sweeping past as if he feels me watching. Then he's gone, fading into the wet and the quiet. My phone buzzes. From Josh, all done, heading home soon, love you. It's the same line I've seen every Thursday,

2:02but suddenly it feels rehearsed. My teeth were already inside of my cheek as I start the engine and drive home alone, headlights slicing through the rain, questions running loops in my mind. The next morning, our world resumes. Josh and I wake while the sky's still blue-dark, moving on on a little pilot in the little kitchen. Other timers, coffee percolating, fly or dust in the air, the rhythms are in my bones. Most days, it feels like muscle memory, not work. We braid dough and ham over to heat events, sneaking bits of toffee from the prep table. That's how it's been for years a kind of comfort that makes you believe you'll never have to wonder about each other. There's days where our ritual, our time to deep clean, argue over playlists, and finish by sneaking out before midnight to Dynas Diner, where the waitress always saves us a seat by the winter. When we started a white pine bakery, I was 28 and terrified, but with Josh across the counter, anything seen possible. In those first few months after our wedding, the two of us rolled pastry until 2 a.m., fell asleep on bags of flyer and knocked out a whole future in lists and scribbles in the backs of receipts. Our love was the wallpaper of the place layered into every silly cake inscription and every order form.

3:04Our text chains were always pinging cake pictures, means about rival baker, is little lovies. Sometimes heat slip and note under my coffee mug, you smell like sugar, Jay. People in Tanjoque were always together the bakery twins, lovers of Main Street. I never mind it. There was a special sweetness to knowing Josh would reach for my hand without thinking, or surprised me by writing good morning, Julian in chocolate on the counter, just because. We laughed through the rough patches when the oven choked up at the register, joined an argue about little things like which side of the prep counter belonged to. Our fights were short, our make-up case is quick. In the rhythm between us, I found everything I needed. But now, when those day walls ran, I can't help but notice the silence where I'll have to use to fit. About three months after Lila started, Josh announced, out of nowhere, that he finished Thursday closing by himself. Inventory is getting out of hand with Lila's new shipment schedule, it's just easier. I like the quiet, can focus better. He said, eyes on the clipboard rather than me, I tried to joke after all these years, you want to clean the proofer alone, but he barely smiled. That first Thursday, I left with the last daylight,

4:04my coat over my arm, Josh waving destructively as I locked up my purse. The eye was a humcrolled by. Every creek of the old floorboards started me, every glance at the clock found my chest height with worry. The texts were brief, still soaring, inventory, be home soon. Just before midnight, he slipped in, got damp hands chilled, smelling fainted of wine. He kissed my cheek quickly, didn't look me in the eye. Sorry I'm late, God elbow deep in a new bread formula with Lila lost track of time. The lie was casual, but he fidgeted with his ring the whole time. I told myself I was seeing things, but the next morning, he was short tempered, I was roomed red, barely touching his breakfast. What if I just asked point blank, what's going on? But I didn't. I fell back on old habits told myself it was work stress, the new supplier headaches. But from then on, Thursday belonged to him and Lila. The drift between us was so gradual at first, I didn't see it until I looked back. Lettle things disappeared. We stopped bumping hips at the espresso machine. On break, he retreated behind the walk-in with his lunch, claiming he needed to review orders never inviting me in.

5:06When he left for deliverers, I stopped getting tucks saying, want anything? He almost never came up behind me for a back hug in a kitchen, not even when I played our usual playlist. On Thursdays, he'd barely brush my cheek when he left mumble, love you, see you later, his lips too cold. On Thursday, I caught him checking his phone, phase half-lit blue, and as I walked by, he lopped the screen and stuck it deep in his pocket. Before, he'd leave it anywhere on the counter by the register in our shared apron cubby. Now it followed him everywhere, always buzzing with messages from a contact label just now. I watched from the side, pretending to clean refrigerators, as he answered calls behind closed doors or hurried out to the alley voicelo but were as urgent. Sometimes, he'd duck outside for 15, 20 minutes, return with a four-smile or a new excuse for kneading air. The call logs were always empty when I tried to check. Every week, more little cracks appear. Inventory would arrive late at night, or odd items would be restored to Turkish figs obscure grain sacks lily never used for anyone else. Receipts from her supply company only ever appeared in the system after I was time stumped Thursdays.

6:08Once, I tried to joke about it to you two mastermining of a caust of a Josh just gave a hollow laugh. She's particular, it's nothing, jewels, don't worry so much. The way he said my name felt rehearsed as if he was reminding himself that I was still his wife. One Thursday, I realized I'd left my jacket at the bakery. I doubled back just after nine, telling myself I'd just pop in, no big deal. The front was dark, but I could see did him kitchen lights through the back window. I crept around hot lard in my ears, she was crunching on the gravel. Through the glass, I saw them lila perch high on the prep counter. Booted feet swinging, Josh leaning in, talking softly. Too close for business. When I opened the door, his sprung apart. Leila's cheeks flush deep pink, Josh's voice too bright to julienne, didn't know you be back. Leila collected her back, mumbled something about schedules, and brushed past me so fast that her perfume Lingo was ghostly proof. Josh claimed they were just reviewing shipments. He tried to laugh it off, but his hand trembled as he locked the register and neither of us spoken the right home. That night, I lay awake listening to his breathing, wide wake with questions that was too scared to ask.

7:10When dawn came, my eyes were dry and gritty, but I found him already in the kitchen humming, pretending nothing had happened. I wanted to believe him, I did. I wanted to remember the Josh who snuck extra chocolate into my quasadot, who baked tiny, I'm sorry cakes when I was mad. But the Thursdays became a wound that kept for reopening. Every Thursday morning, he'd kiss my shoulder, say, might be a late one-to-net infant to resolve, Leila needs her balancing the numbers. The first time I nodded. After the 10th, I stopped asking what time he'd be home. Our future plans evaporated. If I tried to suggest some new marketing idea, some new flavor for the summer, he'd mumble. Let's not put any more on our plate right now, eyes distant. If I brought up Leila her shipments, her schedule he'd shrug or redirect, pretend to find an urgent message on his phone. Our conversations kept hitting dead ends, and the space between us expanded, cold and quiet. The more I tried to ignore it, the worse it got. I started to notice how Leila was everyone now her name's called Undelivery Logs, her little sticky notes starting the back office don't forget to check the rye flyer, hell. She'd drop a non-saturday mornings to check on stock,

8:11bringing coffee for Josh always his favourite blend, always with a heart-drawn and black marker. If she ever brought me anything, it was an extra lemon wedge for my water, like a sad afterthought. Sometimes, after long days, I tried to tease Josh back into old Patent's firefights, silly puns at the cash register, but he begged off too tired, too much paperwork, smile flickering just long enough to make me ache. He slept facing away from me now, arms wrapped around himself. One day, while he was out delivering an ocean order to Leila's processing room, I snuck his phone from his jacket, hands shaking as I unlocked it. There was nothing no text from Leila, no pictures, just neat deletion and a blank call log. But in his Instagram draft, I spotted a few clips that stopped me cold, a video of him and Leila taste testing a new bread at midnight, or giggles and slow motion close-ups with her tossing flyer at his face. Another, quite a clip her hand-sliding past is as he needs to, overlapping in slow motion. Maybe innocent, but he'd neglected our own feed for weeks. The thoughts spun in my head all day. Am I losing into a crush, or have I already lost him to something else?

9:11At the bakery, the regulars came and went, none the wiser. They'd still make jokes or jewels, or as your shadow. I'd trip it off smile. Sometimes, then the slow stretches, I'd catch myself staring at the prep kitchen door, waiting for Josh to walk through, crack a joke toss me a wrap-treffle. Stop fizzing a front-of-shop during peak hours, preferring to sort the backstock always, always on those day afternoons. One afternoon, while closing, I caught Josh grubbling something on Leila's latest ambus. Normally, he'd just tick the checkbooks and file them away, but I watched him out a message in the margin, thanks for tonight, but yeah. He saw me watching, covered the note, and modern, just double-checking quantities. I laughed back, pretended not to notice. But that night, I poured myself a glass of wine, sat on our porch, and crawled back through two years of bakery pictures, comparing the little ways Josh used to look at me eyes bright, easy, and the way he looked at Leila now, softer, almost apologetic. I started to drive by the bakery late on Thursdays, just to see. Sometimes the place was dark, sometimes just the faintest kitchen light flickered.

10:11More than once, I'd see Leo's car in the side alley well after closing hours. I never went in, I just gripped the wheel and told my knuckles with white, tell myself it was nothing, then drive home, and pace the kitchen, waiting for Josh's key in the lock. One Thursday, no of seating me alive, I asked our mutual friend Graham, who worked at the neighboring liquor store, if he'd seen anything odd during Josh's late closings. Graham has stayed, then told me, you guys always hear late with Leila, they laugh, bring and take out together sometimes, figured she was helping you guys with paperwork. He shrugged, concerned flickering for a moment. I nodded tightly and walked away, my inside's churny. At home that night, I cooked dinner for two. Josh called, babe, can you save me a plate? It's going to be really late, got slammed again. I pushed a neat and food down the disposal, more out of habit than hunger. What's up, baby? It's Bretski. And I'm here to tell you that SpinQuest.com is giving out free, sweet coins. All you got to do is purchase a $10 coin pack, and guess what? They're going to give you the coins from a $30 coin pack. That lets you play all your favorite games like Blackjack,

11:11Wanted Dead or Wild, and we're talking real cash prizes, baby. SpinQuest.com! SpinQuest.com SpinQuest is a free to play, Social Casino, Boydware prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details. Two weeks later, the tension reached a new pitch. I showed up at the bakery just after 10 on Thursday, heart racing, telling myself, I just needed to count the register. Through the glass door, a cot side of them, a josh and lila alone, sitting on milk crates, passing a bottle of red between them, shoulders pressed together in a way I'd never seen before. They didn't see me, I almost walked in, but my courage failed me. I ran white in my collar, the cool night air-stinging heart in my lungs. One lila finally left, josh lingered at the window, faced somewhere between guilt and relief. I slipped away and seen. I started cataloging the changes between us, how the bakery now felt split into. Josh worked side by side with lila on Thursday evenings, but on other days he seemed to walk through our space with loud and feet barely present. Our jugs came out hollow. If I reached for him,

12:11he'd find a reason to retreat to take a call, answer an urgent text, fix the cooler. In bed, he lay at I'm's length. Sometimes I caught him staring at the ceiling, lips moving silently as if talking through something I'd never get to hear. It was the secrecy that hurt most. I found myself checking the footage, though it made me feel dirty, ashamed. I couldn't help it. Most nights, a chemist caught nothing but routine cleaning, josh reaping, lila double-checking boxes. But every so often, a longer clip, Josh and cooking a bottle of wine he'd hidden behind his supplies, two glasses appearing out of nowhere, lila sitting in the counter, one leg swinging, the two of them laughing heads close. They talk long past closing, sometimes lila would reach for his hand to emphasize a story. Once her hand landed softly on his thigh. It wasn't kissing, not quite, but it felt worse private, familiar. When he walked her to her car, he pressed his palm to her back for a moment too long. Sometimes I tried to convince myself, maybe it's just friendship. Maybe I'm being jealous, controlling. But if that's all it was, why delete the videos from his phone? Why lie about how late he stayed?

13:12Why did my name never appear on his call log anymore? But I'll shoot up every Thursday, right after close. I'd no prefer only the ache of being erased. Still, I tried to keep the bickery together, to keep us together. On a Monday night, I invited Josh to our old favorite spot, Dinos Diner, hoping routine might heal us. You never want to go out anymore, I teased. He half-smiled and sad, I'm just tired, jewels, can we do take out instead? Even as I tried to hide my disappointment, he was already texting someone beneath the table. His phone lit up with Elle, and he turned the screen away again. Other staff started noticing too. Maggie at our assistant baker gave me a worried look one morning. You okay? Josh seems distracted these days. I shrugged, burying my worry, but thank her in a shaky voice. If anyone else could see it, how much longer till the whole town knew? The worst part was the way nostalgia crept in around the cracks. Some nights I'd replay memories, the way Josh once baked a heart-shaped loaf for our first anniversary, or the time we drove an eye for a case of vanilla beans, arguing and laughing all the way home.

14:12I remembered waking up in bed-tangle together, dreaming up bakery names, making promises. Lately, even those memories felt suspect. One Wednesday, I tried to start a conversation. Over dinner, I asked, are you happy with us with the bakery? He paused blinking. Yeah, I'm just stressed, that's all. When I press further, he snapped. Why are you interrogating me? I'm doing my best. I dropped it, feeling small and childish. He cleared his plate and retreated to the porch, phone in hand, thumb-moving rapidly across the screen. The next afternoon, Josh left early, said he had an appointment with Leela to review the flyer order. I watched from the kitchen window as they loaded her car, they are laughed at echoing up to the break room. At one point, Josh reached up, brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She laughed, hand-catching, his wrists then let him go. I felt sick watching it, but the show continued, a pantomime of two people slowly growing closer as if I was the one intruding. At our next staff meeting, I tried to ask about our summer plans, should we do the farmer's market, try a baking class for regulars? Josh glanced at Leela,

15:12who lingered near the back, and said, let's hold off on new stuff, we need to get the basics right first. Afterwards, he avoided my eyes, inventing some urgent task in the stockroom. That Friday, I rummaged through our joint office for a pen, found a torn scrap of paper, a grocery bill with a thanks again for Thursday, couldn't do it without you. It jaced gold and Josh's handwriting. It was addressed to Leela, tucked half under a fold she'd brought by. I hid the paper in my pocket trembling, unsure if this was an essence or just more evidence I was coming apart. The weeks blurred into each other. At market stalls, Josh barely touched my waist anymore, made excuses to run errands alone. I'd see him at the edge of a crowd, Leela sometimes at his side, the two of them jerking quietly. My phone, wants so full of life and affection, now filled with business notes, no more late night means, no more wishy were here pictures. Even at home, I walled a trunk to business. I tried to break the eyes, remember when we burned that first batch of Bacca. Yeah, he said distantly, can't afford to mess up like that with Leela's new pricing. As if our old stores belonged to a different life, one that Leela could improve,

16:12upgrade, even replace. On a Thursday evening, after I'd old, but given up on sleep, I decided I had to know what went on after Ayers. The idea made me sick, but the wanting was worse. While Josh was in a shower, I checked our baker's cloud security account, the one we'd set up to keep track of deliveries. I fast-forwarded through grainy footage cleaning, stacking, the usual. Thursday after Thursday, Leela arrived late, always after closing, sometimes carrying take-up. I watched as she perched near Josh, her head thrown back and laughter, wind appearing on the counter, soft conversations across flurry tables. Sometimes the heads tilted a little too close, sometimes the hands brush lingered. One night, he took the loose head behind her rear and she looked up at him, a smile blooming. There wasn't anything that would lie on either of them in court, but there was a gravity between them private, hungry, itchingly familiar. I closed the app handshaking. I told myself, maybe it's lonely Ayers. Maybe she's as lost as I am. But nothing explained why Josh felt the need to hide any of it from me. The following morning, those day again,

17:12Josh breathed into the kitchen as if nothing had changed. Don't wait up for me tonight, okay? I nodded mutely. He pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head, his lips barely brushing my hair. I wanted to beg him, tell me the truth. Instead, I whispered to be safe. He hesitated for half a second before squeezing my shoulder and leaving. I stood in the bakery after he left the lingering cent of us after she had making me want to scream. I loved around at the empty racks, the silent ovens a whole life coiled in the quiet. How many times had I mistaken routine for intimacy? How long had I accepted crumbs because I thought the loaf was still Ayers? That evening, I found myself walking the route to the bakery before dinner, my body knowing the way even as my mind folded. I circled the lot, stayed hidden behind wheelers' car and watched the shadows flicker through the frost of kitchen window. They were laughed to float it out, easy secret. I pressed my hands to the glass, hoping against hope that I was wrong. But hope felt like the last lie, a leftover at the bottom of a refrigerated display case, waiting to be thrown away. The next Thursday, the baker is closing

18:12bell chained at six, the way it always did, echoing sharp in the empty front room. Josh had been distracted all week, barely looking at me when we passed in the kitchen, letting silence as pull-up-like spill-batter. I told myself I was imagining things that every couple of days, even but it was getting harder to ignore how far apart we drifted. After I lost customer left, Josh announced, I'll finish up here and you get to jump on the books at home. I've got it, already stirring me toward the door before I could object. He barely kissed my cheek as flickering everywhere but mine. I stood outside for a moment, keys daking into my palm, watching him as he moved through the empty bakery with quick practice motions that somehow looked for now. Instead of driving home, I circled the block, parking near the post office across the street. The door was light-filled through the blinds, painting thin gold stripes over the sidewalk. A full-hour tick-by, my fingers tap in the steering wheel, every muscle in my shoulders, tense and prickling. My mind acted out, end the scenes, Josh and Lila laughing, heads bent together at the flicker of his smile, her fingertips tracing the edge of his

19:12sleeve. A little after seven, a flashlight barbed near the loading dark. Lila, hair pulled back in a messy knot, cradling a bakery box in her arms. She moved with a quite confidence, unlocking the back door in the curtain. I saw her set the box down, slip off her jacket, and roll her sleeves. Josh met her near the mixer, and they laugh at something, voices muffled by the glass. There was one again she ported into two mismatched mugs, handed one to Josh, and they toasted silently. He leaned against the counter, close enough to touch. All the old rituals that belonged to us now played out in secret on the other side of the window. I sat there until my legs prickled with pins and needles, hard hammering. At some point, I was curiously at my car, but I didn't move. Eventually, I started the engine, headlights flashing briefly over the bakery windows. Inside, Josh and Lila didn't flinch, they were lost in their own world. That night, Josh came home after midnight. He was freshly shower at the faint trace of unfamiliar perfume, clinging to his sweater.

20:12Rough night, I asked trying to keep my voice light. He dropped his bag on the floor and shrugged, eyes a little glazed. Inventory was a mess, I had to read you half the spreadsheets, long we'd get it right, huh? He smiled, but it was the smile he gave customers' glossy and impenetrable. I tried to read his face for any chink in the armor. Did you eat? I pressed. Lila brought sandwiches, he said, bizzying himself with the mail. Tuna melt, not as good as yours, but you know. When I asked what time he left the bakery, he hesitated, brushing his hair out of his face, and mumbled, late. Sorry, didn't think to text again, I figured you'd be asleep. He sank into the couch, shoulder's tense, and scrolled over. We sat like that for almost an iron, not talking, the TV broadcasting to an empty room. I waited for him to put his arm around me, to bridge the gap, even just a tired smile. Nothing came. The next morning, I visited myself of receipts, a bin of orders from the previous week, pretending I didn't notice the new sticky note on the fridge lily's familiar handwriting, looping a

21:12little hot over the eye in, pick up almond flyer. Josh hovered by the coffee maker, typing something into his phone, pausing for a long beat before his head, voice softer than I meant. He blinked, wandered off with his mug, leaving me alone in a familiar noise. At lunch, he didn't sit with me, just grabbed his sandwich and sat in the alley on an overturned milk crate, staring at his shoes. I watched through the glass, wanting to throw something at him and pull him close at the same time. That night, restless, a texted Maggie, and asked if she'd noticed anything odd lately. She replied, just seems stressed. You both do. Everything okay? I didn't dancer. The next Thursday, I tried to get ahead of things. I can help tonight. I offered a breakfast pouring coffee into our chipmunks. We'll get out early. Maybe grab dessert at dinos. Josh sat his mug down so hard it's blast. No, Jules. It's better if I just handle it. Leela's coming. Anywhere we're running late in the right order, and there's paperwork. I'm barely keeping up. Since when do we close separately? I don't mind paperwork.

22:12Jules, I just can I get one night of quiet? Please. He scrubbed at his eyes, not meeting mine. I pulled my hands into my lap, feeling them go cold. He softened. It's just business. Trust me, okay? But that night, when midnight rolled around, and he still wasn't home, I lost my nerve. I called, but he didn't answer. I sat by the kitchen window until the first blue light of don't crept through the trees. Forget everything you had planned for this weekend because you are sitting on your couch and winning from the comfort of your own home. I'm here with SpinQuest, where you could play hundreds of slot games, all of the table games you love, and you could even win real cash prizes. New users, $30 coin packs, are on sale for ten at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free to play social casino. Boyedware prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details. The following week twisted tighter. At the bakery, orders were piling up. Leal is delivered as got later, and each Thursday her visit stretched.

23:12I overheard them laughing in the back her voice low. Josh's reply gendered than anything I'd heard from him in months. That Friday, as I re-shelved ingredients, I found an napkin tucked behind the register. Leal is handwriting again, looping a little smiley face beside. Thanks for last night. Loved your story, Elle. I turned it over in my hands, called blooming in my gut. What stories was Josh telling her? Now that Irish were stale. I tried to match his mood, jerked about those day wine nights over dinner. Careful, I teased, but my voice was brittle. He will turn into a grape at this rate. He only smiled distractedly, eyes not leaving his film. Later, I couldn't sleep, so I scrolled his old messages, aching for the old love you, sweet tooth and finding only short replies, bakery iris, jokes about fly or dust. In every gap, my imagination filled in the worst. Even our bod is drifted apart. Where we used to bump into each other in the kitchen, hands touching, smiles easy. Now every movement felt choreographed to avoid contact. His embrace, when it came, was brief, accidental hand at my elbow, a brush of lips to my forehead as he heard by. I caught him practicing new bread braids alone, his

24:12hands deaf and certain, but he never called me over to join him anymore. There was a Saturday when hope and dry braided together in me. Business was slow, rain tapping out the windows, our world shrunk to steam and the rattle of the mixer. Leila arrived midday, dripping with rain, bright with laughter. Josh, big news, a scored a box by sword or weight until you see. She tossed her wet jacket over the back of a chair and held out her foreign for him, thumb scrolling through pictures. Their heads bowed together, their voices hushed. I tried to edge into the conversation, tossed about pricing, but Leila answered with a turning. His smile meant for him. After she left, Josh was giddy, practically floating around the kitchen. Did you see what she pulled off, cinnamon by the crit? Half the normal raid. Leila's a genius. His jaw would prick sharp and hot. We landed deals before together, but I never seen him this proud. Not when we won our first award. Not when the select one gave us the best bakery plaque. I bit my tongue until it bled. Sunday night, I tried reaching out again. I set the table with our favourite poster,

25:12playlist full of our anniversary songs. When Josh unlocked the door, breathless, he paused, looking uncertain. What's the occasion? He asked. I just miss us. I said, voice paper thin. We hardly talk anymore. He found dropping his bag. He know things have been nuts between the bakery, the orders, Leila shipments. I'm still here. I interrupted and able to stop myself. So why does it feel like I'm not? He stared at the floor for a heartbeat, then forced a smile. Entire jewels can we just eat. He sat, shoveling posse it into his mouth. His eyes locked in the middle distance. We finished in silence. The kind that eats it you from the inside. On Tuesday, I tried to take a day off, booking a couple's massage at the spawn near the lake. I called Josh at lunch, telling him, I thought we could take a break from the bakery just for an afternoon. Remember when we used to seek out midweek just because his voice was thin and distracted. I can't, jewels. Leila's got a new shipment coming and I promised I'd help and load, can we re-encheck? In the background, I have Leila laugh and a moment as he said, hey, I'm on the phone

26:12no, no, it's nothing. The line went silent before he muttered goodbye. That night, I lay in bed awake, staring at the yellow crux of street I crawling across the ceiling, wishing I knew how to fall out of love, or at least stop caring who made my husband laugh. Around then, I noticed the calls. Sometimes, while cleaning, I'd see the same number out, again lighting up his phone at odd hours, always on Thursdays, always vanishing from his call of the next day. I stopped trying to reason it away, but I still watched. I still hope for an explanation that would make this pain feel smaller, but explanations never came. Instead, there were more secrets. Leila started leaving her scarf in the break room, her lipstick on a discarded napkin by a coffee pot little proofs that she belonged summer private that her world overlapped mine in other places that mattered. Josh started using new inside jokes. One's I didn't know, talking about Thursday gang as if it was always the three of us. When I said, let's add a new cookie for spring, he was like being written out of my own story, one Thursday at a time. Then, a small

27:12rupture, one Thursday evening, toward the end of May, I arrived to drop off forgotten paperwork and let myself in by habit. The bakery was silent except for the hum of the cooler. I stepped into the kitchen and stopped it with dim, but I could see Leila perched in the prep counter, leg swinging, Josh between her knees, both giggling over something on his phone. Their faces were too close, his hand on her thigh. They froze when I entered, girl flashing over both their faces in the wash of fluorescent light. Ufft. Josh clearer distraught, pulling back as if stunned. Babe, I thought she'd gone home. His voice was too bright, too brittle. I forgot the vendor forums I managed trying to keep my face calm, my hands from shaking. Leila muttered, I should get going, sliding off the counter so quickly she nearly dropped her phone. She squeezed past me, not meeting my eyes, the centre for perfume sharp and unfamiliar. When Josh joined me by the register, he looked anywhere but at me. She was just helping with the new ring. He said, needed a second opinion. His hands were trembling as he counted out the tools. Then why

28:12do you both look like I coach a sharp lifting? He laughed too loud, too rehearsed. Here being dramatic, it's late. Let's lock up. We wrote home in silence the darkness between us the guitar. When we got inside, he retreated to the shower and left me pacing our dark and tall way clutching the vendor forums like a lifeline. I told myself I was going crazy seeing things that weren't there. But the images wouldn't leave me, the casual intimacy, the way they made in the bakery after ire's. And still still I doubted myself. Each time I told myself it was nothing, a hundred new shadows found me. I wanted to believe in us in the countless little moments we built up over the years, but each Thursday was eating away at what was left. The next few days are barely slept. When I did, I dreamed of empty bakery shelves and handwritten notes in someone else's script. In the mornings, I found Josh downstairs, cradling his mug, staring at the blank wall over the sink. When I reached for his hand across the table, he flinched just enough for me to notice. Sometimes the grief of split me open and spill out an odd ways a half-packed bouquet left by the sink, missed calls to old friend, I hadn't

29:12talked to in years, a new notebook where I scrolled angry half-poems and cross him out. I started to crave insolitude and hated myself for it, yet whenever Josh tried to make small talk, I felt a burn beneath my ribs, or wordless, aching resentment. There is a came again, inevitable as the tides. I left the bakery early, walking home in a late spring drizzle, pretending I was tied, pretending routine could fill the spaces routine had left behind. Dinner was quite fair, Josh claiming he 'd eat later re-running late, Leela's delivery is a mess again. He lays up his boots, grabbed his jacket, and let the door fall shut without looking back. I waited until full dark, then, as the clock crept past 11, I drove the loop around Main Street slowly, headlights off, breeding shallow and tight. I stopped across from the bakery, nestled in the hollow of a maple tree shadow, and watched the windows. At first, nothing. Then laughter at the scrape of a stool, silhouettes behind drawn blinds. I crouched low, hot pounding, straining to make up details through the sheen of condensation. I saw Leela sit on the edge of the counter, her hand dangling down, Josh circling her with a towel like he used to do for me after a

30:12late nights. The shaped merge, separated, merged again, contours intimate, comfortable in the half-dark. They stayed long after midnight, the lights finally snapping off at 1230. I watched as Josh walked Leela to her car, her hand on his arm, his head bowed toward her. When she drove off, he stood in the lot alone for a long minute before slouched into water's truck and disappearing into the night. But week later, I did the thing I told myself I wouldn't do. I waited until Josh left for an early delivery, then set up my laptop at the kitchen table and logged into the bakery security camera feed. My hands shook as the footage jumped through the doll, silent iris. Mostly it was business as usual Josh wiping down counters, Leela on backing boxes, the two of them talking, Leela laughing hard at something Josh said, sometimes pausing to listen as he played the radio quietly in the background. But on Thursday nights things changed. Footage drenched on into midnight and later. Sometimes, after closing, he produced a bottle of wine from the old stock cupboard. Leela would stay even after the delivery paperwork was put away, just approaching her by drinking from a mug, her

31:12legs tucked up. They talked with easy slow intimacy sometimes, sitting so close to the forearms touched almost a whole time. I watched as they bent over, his phone together, how she fit against his shoulder, how his handling good on her knee while they shared a private joke. It was divert. There was no clear evidence for shutting or demands or even a clean accusation. Just a thousand of tiny ways people become more than colleagues, then more than friends, the gravity between them growing so powerful it bends everything around it out of shape. I closed the laptop on my trumping hands. I wanted to scream to throw something, but the only sound in the house was the hum of the fridge and the feind echo of laughter from the recording played back by mistake. By the time I had Josh's key in the door, I was already making dinner, face-gold, and to careful indifference. He slumped at the counter, tossing his phone in a new, careful way, a little too deliberate. Everything okay. He asked Brawford. I wanted to ask why she stayed late so often, why every Thursday it was a secret dinner for two, why my world felt cold and strange. I just smiled instead. I'm fine, just higher. When he pulled me into a quick half-hearted

32:12hug, it felt the shape of the lie pressed between us, invisible and unspoken. And still the weeks kept spinning. The baker's little routines continued outwardly and changed. Customers came and went oblivious, asking after Josh when he was working the back, teasing about our baker's marriage. Staff gossiped in a kitchen, someone humming an old song from our first ever playlist. Little came and went sometimes, with a box of pastries for taste tests, sometimes a bouquet of lilac she claimed was for all of us but which ended up at Josh's workstation. On Thursday nights, the distance felt unbridgeable. Josh always left early to prep for legal shipments, dropping his wedding ring into his apron pocket, claiming a scratch is the door. If I caught his eyes, he left, he looked almost so. I stopped saying goodbye, slowly, my hope was replaced by something else a kind of numb expectancy, waiting for the truth to finally announce itself, loud and number-sakeable. I moved for each day like an actor reciting lines from a play I no longer believed in, waiting for the moment the lights would change and everything would be exposed. But still, I watched. I waited. I waited for him to come

33:12home late, for the sense that didn't belong. I waited for the quite fund of what I already knew to fill the air between us with undeniable proof. The bakery, once the cradle of every good thing in my life, now felt haunted echoes of laughter, flashes of touch, now all belonging to someone else. Thursday after Thursday, heart brace for the last confirmation, a circle is closer to the truth I no longer had the strength to disprove. The next morning, I move automatically, coffee, ledger, unlocking doors, pretending my hands on shaking each time I brush against the bakery counter. The ghost of the night before lingers in the corners, the low laughter I'd heard through glass, the weight in Josh's step, when he came home near dawn, silent, smelling faintly flier and the perfume I can't name. He didn't kiss me, didn't even bother to invent an excuse. We moved around each other in the kitchen as if balancing on the edge of a cliff, near the one of us willing to look down. By seven a.m., the bakery is open, ammonia, and cinnamon battling for territory in the air. A time I apron tight on force a smile at Maggie as she comes in, cheerful and oblivious. Guaff night, she asks, but her point at the orderless, shifting the focus. The

34:12rigula is trickle through, recessed in for scones, the family from the next town for morning buns. I ring them up, thank them, all on autopilot. Josh comes in late, not bothering to explain why. His cheeks are hollowed from lack of sleep, his eyes think are anywhere but on me. The line between us, once so intimate, feels like two strangers when in the same routine in parallel. By lunch time, I can barely look at him. He drift around the bakery, making himself busy or stacking boxes, fussing with flyer orders, typing lists on the ancient computer. He startles if I say his name. When Maggie cracks a joke about you two ever take days off, or you literally glued together. Josh doesn't even smile. He says, God aprop for Thursday, new inventories are beast, as if it's the start and end of every problem. I text him from the register, Petty, point us just, lunch, when you're free. But he ignores it. At the counter, a watch and pull his phone from his pocket, glance at a message, then tuck it away as if it's galloping. My breath grows thin. The tension between us is now so thick, customer's notice. One older couple gives me a sideline glance as

35:12Josh nips me short when I ask about tomorrow shift. I think I had it can hide in the stuff bathroom, staring at the melgy ceiling until my chest stops rattling. You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get at my phone and play real casino games on SpinQuest.com, the time flies by. That two-hour weight at the DMV seems like ten minutes. Play your favorite spots. Live Blackjack, live preps, with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for ten bucks. Play SpinQuest.com, and you'll never be bored again. SpinQuest is a free to play so sure casino. Boyd were prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details. That evening, rain spatters against the windows, the bakery empty except for the click of the cooling ovens. I can hear every movement Josh makes a chair scooting the fridge door thunking closed, the sigh he gives when he refills his water. I finish up in the front locking the register, bagging up the days left of Remuffins. When he comes out, he avoids eye contact, mumbling, leela stopping by, and forgot her scarf

36:12last night. It's an obvious lie her scarf has been hanging on the office hook for a week. I just nod, hand in the bag. Give it to her, then. He flinches, as if I struck him. Don't wait up tonight, he says, grab in his coat. I watch him walk out, leela scarf clushed too tight, his shoulders hunched. When the door closes behind him, I sag against the counter, body suddenly heavy. There is nothing left in his room that doesn't echo with absence. It only gets worse as a week grinds on. The air is brittle, and conversation is clipped. Thursday morning, Josh's red eye, drinking coffee in silence. I want to ask him if he slept at all, if he found a single comfortable spot to rest his head, but I know it's pointless. There's no warmth, no comfort here just protocols, just practice. Thursday has always been irons, and now it's a wound. I watch him lock his wedding ring in the till before the dinner rush. The gesture so practice now, I wonder how many weeks I've missed it. He doesn't look at me. Leela arrives after dark, bright and wind blow, and her energy filling the kitchen even before she calls hello. We've got a

37:12double order on the right. I think he guys can handle. She jokes only half-glancing my way. Josh answers for both of us. Their world is sealed. At the end of the night, I count tips for the register, handshaking slightly. Josh finishes up the back, talking quietly with Leela. I can hear their laughter muffled, but unmistakable, and I struggle to hold the pen steady as the order sheet blows. I close my ledger, lock up, and leave without a word. I home, every noise makes me wince. I pace the living room, I try to read, but each page is just lines of nonsense. My phone vibrates once, Josh, we'll be late inventory's a mess again. Same light different week. Outside headlights wash to walls. I'd out of the window, half hoping it's him, half hoping it isn't. Unable to sleep, I draw last shared email, the admin in looks for the bakery. There's nothing incriminating, just normal business, inverses, or deformations, promo pitches. Still, still I search. I reread to camera logs, watch again the footage I know by heart. Each time now, I hope to catch some technical

38:12glitch, something that proves I've misunderstood that what I saw was light and shadows, not betrayal. But it's all the same, the wine, the closeness, the private laughter. Something ex-deep in my chest, an old grief-gun-sepic. Friday Josh's late. He barely looks at me, hair- rumple, skin- grey beneath the stubble. We cross in the kitchen and collide at the mixing bowl. I don't have a single. For a moment, our hands tangle in the dough, but he pulls away fast. Sorry, he mutters, wiping his hands on a towel. I have to get eggs, I say of horsewooden. We're out. He doesn't protest. I leave door swinging behind me, drive nowhere, just dragging out the minute so I don't have to see him. The staff is restless, the regular is less chatty. Maggie leaves early for a dentist appointment, mumbling, see you two tomorrow, but there's a question in her eyes I don't have the energy to answer. I try to busy myself with receipts, then toss them into the bin and his dead stare at the bakery floor, unnames etched in yelling, paint near the fridge. I can't decide what hurts more at the path of the present vacancy. As Saturday comes, the bakery feels hollow. The morning shift

39:12crawls. The machinery of our partnership runs on fumes for receipts filed, cakes for us stood, coffee sampled, all by rope. Sometimes, in a quiet moment, I think about asking Josh directly, but the words curdled before reaching my lips. Another call from Elle on his phone during the afternoon, his laugh soft and private. I tell him I'm running home to make lunch, and he barely registers it. At the house, I set the table for two, then unsaid it, eating a lonesome staring at my hands. After lunch, I call him, not sure why. The phone rings and rings. When he finally picks up, he sounds distracted. Yeah? I just wondered when you'd be home, thought we could. He cuts me off impatient. I'm working Jules, can we talk about it later? A soft voice in the background, Leela, asking about delivery weights. He covers the receiver. I'll call you back. He disconnects. I sit until the food goes cold, not touching my fork, just staring at the empty second plate. Still, I persist. I text, maybe after work, we can

40:12grab a drink like the old days. No reply. Later that day, Graham from the liquor store works in. He usually jokes ribs me about our domestic bliss. Today he looks uneasy, buying only a bottle of tonic in a stack of napkins. Hey, Jules, you go to your care. His ass flex highways as if weighing whether to say more. I stiffen and paced on a smile. Fine thanks, busy weekend, up. He has states. So Josh and Leela Dynas last night thought you two were the Dyna couple. My blood goes cold. With nothing left to lose, I walk from the bakery through the drizzle just after five straight to Dynas, the Dyna we Josh and I used to close our Thursdays. The waitress, who's known us for years, clanses away when she sees me. Hey Jules, table for row, just you. I nod to take our usual booth. There's a plate with half a sandwich, two mugs with lipstick stains, a bald up napkin on the far side. I hesitate then ask, was Josh here tonight? She wins his canty, then just says with Leela. They left maybe a half a year ago. I didn't want to, she stops. You want pie? I shake my head.

41:14No, thank you. My hands clench under the table. I leave the Dyna and drive back to the bakery, parking across the street, invisible. Light shines in the kitchen, the figures bled, moving to get a through fly or center air. The intimacy is unmistakable. I sit and moving, watching until the lights flick off in the pan marriage, Leela's hand glides along his back, Josh's arms steady at her waist. The entangle, slow, careful, like reluctant lovers in a play. I can't breathe. The rain, the headlights, the dolly, cover, think converges into a single, crushing certainty. There are no more maybes, no more explanations, just the final truth. I don't drive home. I don't even cry. I just sit in the car, palm slick, knuckles-wide. When I finally force myself to go home, the house is silent, sterile. Josh's boots, by the door where he always leaves them, as if nothing has changed. But something enormous has broken, and the fractured is irreparable. By midnight, when I hear Josh's truck in the drive, I'm numb. He comes and quietly, trying not to wake me, I sit at the kitchen table in the half-light, hands folded, so tight my

42:14nails dig into my palms. He stands in the doorway frozen. Why are you up? I let the silence expand. My voice is smaller than I want. Where were you? He drops his bag by the door. Bakery, we had a late order. I told you. Don't lie to me. He flinches, shakes his head. Jules, what are you talking about? So I ask quite but direct. Are you in love with her? What? He laughs, dry, and credulous. Don't please, it's not. I don't say it's not what I think. I saw you last night to night every Thursday. I know about the wine, the late nights, the way you touch her. I know. Josh sits heavily, keys rattling on the table. Color drains from his face. I, he stops pinching the bridge of his nose. It's not what you think. I stare at him, feeling a screen build in my throat. So tell me, explain it, because you stop touching me, you stop talking to me, you haven't looked at me in months. He can't meet my eyes. It didn't start like that. She's just someone to talk to,

43:14someone who gets it, gets me, we were friends, then. His voice cracks. I didn't plan for this to happen. I'm sorry, Jules, I'm so sorry. My hands tremble. He lied to me every Thursday, every call, every late night delivery. How long? My voice breaks. How long? He cries out softly. A couple months, I swear, that's all, but it happened fast. I never wanted to hurt you. You already did. I whisper a voice raw. He threw us away for her. He covers his face, shoulders caving inward. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to lose everything. I just, she listens, she makes me feel like like myself. Rage surges up. I snatch his keys from the table and held them at the counter for shaking. You're a liar. I gave you everything, our home, this business, my whole downed life, and you just decided it wasn't enough. He stares at the keys, skittering across tiles, stunned and silent. Air between us thins, sharp and metallic. I push back from the table, tears threatening, but refusing to fall. For a beat, everything is still. Get out. He has dits.

44:14Jules, don't let's talk. Get out. I say final. He stands slow as if every bone aches. He grabs his jacket, hesitating in the doorway, searching my face for mercy. I look away. After a moment, he goes quiet, keys clutched in his shaking hand like a talisman, the dorsany can close behind him. The kitchen is hollow, echoing with the violence of silence. I stand there for a moment, then collapse at the table every muscle and done. My gaze lands on the cold ticket Josh brought for what was supposed to be a late dinner from the diner just like all times. Re-sook paper, a will to napkin, I'm beside at the familiar comfort of our chit-biggery mug. Every detail looks unchanged, but all the warmth in our marriage feels counterfeit, exposed by the icy hush claim to everything he left behind. I let myself sit with that loss, breathing deep chest aching, hands heavy, eyes fixed on those small proofs of life continuing even as every shape in the room tells me something is over. And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next one. You know what? It sucks to be bored. But

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