Page 15 of Unmatched

“Lydia,” she says dryly, waiting for me to look up. “What is there not to know? He made a profile on a dating site for married people. He told other women he wants to spend ‘naughty afternoons’ with them.”

I close my eyes, a wave of heat passing over my face. “But what if it’s just a profile? Maybe he hasn’t actually...”

What has he done?

I’m bombarded with images of his bare skin against someone else’s. Embracing a woman who isn’t me between his muscled arms and chest. Kissing her. Whispering to her. Penetrating her.

I shudder. “He can’t be sleeping with someone else, for God’s sake. He’s only ever slept with me!”

Caprice pauses, her drink halfway to her mouth. “I think I knew that, but I really didn’t need to know that.”

I rest my head on the counter, my thoughts racing back to the weekend, to our non-encounters in the kitchen, in the bed. My whole body flushes hot. If I’d just kissed him and said I’d go to the stupid hot springs, done anything else right, would his “dating” profile even exist? Or has this been going on longer? We’ve been avoiding each other for days now. What does he do while I’m gone? Who is he with?

What if he already loves someone else?

I sit back in my chair, staring into nothingness until Caprice’s voice finally reaches me again.

“Lydia. If he’s stepping out, throw his ass out the door.”

I look up at her. The world seems thick and foggy. “You think I should?”

“You’re not going to just ignore this and look the other way.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t think I could.”

My phone lights up with yet another baby-gushing text from my mom, but instead of looking at it, I open my thread with Anton. Normally, we text all the time, but we’ve only exchanged a handful of messages the past few days. He asked me a question about our taxes, and I’d answered, then there were a few lame comments about the weather. I scroll up to last week, before the water heater and the hot springs and the tension, to some bantering we did about politics and a lively meme-filled discussion about whether or not kale belonged on our grocery list. I’d sent him a silly picture of Heartthrob wearing my glasses the day before that, and Anton had made a joke about him making an efficient secretary. My heart aches as I read back over our conversations, feeling foolishly nostalgic for that everyday back-and-forth. Now it’s tempting to type out:

Found your Unmatched profile. Did you cheat?

But as much as I want to straight up ask, I’m also afraid. What if he doesn’t answer? What if I come home to an empty house and I never see him again?

I guess I’ve figured out one thing. I need to confront him in person, look into his eyes, and get an answer.

But I don’t know where to start.

I tap out a message telling him I’m working late, which feels totally resentful but also completely believable. Then I switch over to the browser and plug in the Unmatched web address. It won’t let me past the landing page without an account.

“What’s your login?” I ask.

Caprice glances over my shoulder at the screen, doing a double-take. “You want to torture yourself more?”

“Can I have it or not?” I point to the site in front of me. “Or should I just make my own?”

“No, don’t do that,” she grumbles. “You don’t need to get yourself in trouble.” She tears a sheet of paper out of her notebook and jots down:

Username: LonelyGirl8

Password: 1nFiDel!ty

She hands me the paper with some hesitation. “I was sort of kidding about changing his profile. We’d need someone to hack his account if you really want to do that.”

“I’m just looking,” I mutter.

I go to Anton’s page first, glancing over the stats and reading the description again. I’ve endured an undercurrent of nausea ever since I first saw it, but looking at it a second time, nothing new pings. It honestly seems sort of generic. I click away to the favorites tab on Caprice’s profile. Here, I find a cache of men. Some of the profiles clearly use stock images, others appear more genuine, and there’s at least one besides Anton I think I recognize, but I can’t say from where. A few of their descriptions are overtly filthy. One or two might pass for gentlemanly if I didn’t know what they were there for. But most are honestly boring. Looking to cheat. Tired of my wife. My queasiness increases. I’m not sure what I’m after, but the more I scroll through, the less any of these assholes stand out.

I tap my finger against my lips and go back to the main page, clicking on “Ladies” in the search instead of “Men.”

This doesn’t pull up thousands of results like the dudes, but apparently there are enough unscrupulous women in the area to generate several pages. My lip twitches as I scroll, wondering if my husband has looked over each of these same faces. Darkly, I try to guess which ones he might’ve clicked.

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