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  Tell Me Everything

  Copyright © 2019 by Amy Hatvany

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked and copyrighted status and owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these works is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Cover design by Christine Coffey

  Book design by Inkstain Design Studio

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Amy Hatvany

  It Happens All The Time

  Somewhere Out There

  Safe with Me

  The Language of Sisters

  Outside the Lines

  Best Kept Secret

  “If it’s both terrifying and amazing

  then you should definitely pursue it.”

  —ERADA SVETLANA

  “You can’t have solutions for the

  conversations you’re not having.”

  —KATE NORTHRUP

  Prologue

  The first thing you should know about me is that I love my husband. The second is that I occasionally have sex with other men.

  Here I am, on a Saturday night, in the arms of a man we found together. He is smart, funny. He understands our need for discretion. He knows that he is only a visitor.

  I kiss this man. I undress for him and let him touch my body. He teases me, as I do, him. We fall into bed, and I memorize the taste of his skin, how it feels when he pushes inside me. The number of times he makes me come. I etch every one of his movements into my memory, filing them away, like dreams. Knowing that what happens between us is everything. And yet, at the same time, nothing at all.

  When we finish, I leave, almost immediately, and go home to the man who cherishes me.

  I find him waiting for me, always, knowing exactly where I’ve been. I hurry toward him, my flesh still scented by another man’s caress, my body aching from the pleasure of what we’ve just done.

  My eyes lock on my husband’s. Our desire for each other pulses like a heart that has just been brought back to life.

  When I reach him—when I am finally, truly home—he pulls me to his chest, his lips pressed up against my ear.

  “Tell me everything,” he says. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  One

  It started, as most things do, in the smallest of ways. An invitation to dinner.

  “Hey sexy,” my husband’s text said. “Wanna go on a date with me tonight? I was thinking Italian. Or Thai. We could go downtown. The kids are with Peter this weekend, right?”

  “Yep,” I responded, fighting a small ache in my chest. It was a Friday in early May, I was finishing up at the office, and my ex-husband, Peter, and I had been divorced for ten years at that point. We shared custody of our two kids, Ella and Tucker, but it was always a little hard for me when they spent nights at his house instead of mine: I missed the noisy, musical notes of their laughter bouncing off the walls and dreaded the sight of their empty, rumpled beds when I walked past their rooms.

  When Peter and I decided to split, Ella had been three and Tucker, almost two. Barely adults when we met—both of us, twenty—we had known each other only six weeks before we got married on impulse and had two babies in rapid succession, our naiveté leading us to believe that love was all we needed to sustain us. Love, it turned out, was not the only necessary ingredient in a successful marriage. Our relationship decidedly lacked the others, like maturity, communication, and mutual respect. I once told my best friend, Charlotte, that Peter and I were what should have been a one-night stand that ended up lasting three years.

  I met Jake a couple of years after the divorce became final, and waited several months to introduce him to the kids, fearful of bringing someone into their lives who might not stay. But I soon learned that Jake was a solid, reliable kind of man—the kind my mother immediately described as “someone who would stick with you through cancer.” As an oncologist’s wife, this is her go-to gauge for the true measure of a person’s worth.

  “Let’s do Thai. I’m craving something spicy,” I texted Jake, now, including a hot pepper emoji and a couple of winking smiley faces, hoping he’d pick up on the innuendo. I couldn’t remember the last time he and I had had a date night—especially one that he suggested—so the fact that he’d texted in the middle of the day to ask me out gave me hope that he might initiate something more after dinner, too.

  “Oh, I’ll give you something spicy, woman!” he wrote back.

  That sounds promising, I thought, though I tried to manage my expectations. Jake would often talk a good game about sex—he’d flirt and make suggestive comments—but didn’t always follow through with the act itself. A couple of weeks ago, I’d sent him a selfie of me standing in front of a “sold” sign with a big smile on my face, and he replied, “Wow, that woman is smokin’. Think I might be able to convince her to sleep with me?”

  “Let me ask,” I said, waiting a few seconds before sending him a second text. “She says maybe. But only if you promise to go down on her.”

  “That’s my favorite direction! How did she know?”

  And yet, as soon as we were both at home, Ella asked Jake to run soccer drills with her, and after that, Tucker needed his help with science homework, so by the time we went to bed, my husband kissed me, rolled over, and promptly fell asleep. I didn’t say anything, because how could I complain that he prioritized spending quality time with the kids? I knew from talking with other friends who were on their second—or third—marriage that not all men took to the role of step-father the way Jake had, so I told myself that I should count my blessings. This was just a sexual dry spell—all marriages went through them. I simply had to be patient, and eventually we’d go back to the way we used to be.

  Still, I was determined to try to keep a flicker of our romantic life alive. I’d met Jake in the kitchen last Friday night wearing nothing but high heels, a lacy thong, and one of his favorite blue ties dangling between my breasts. I’d thought about that moment all week, knowing both kids would be at a friend’s house for an overnight. Hearing his car pull into the garage, I struck the sexiest pose I could manage while teetering upon four-inch stilettos. My right hand rested on my hip, elbow jutting out.

  “Hi baby,” I said, as he walked in the door.

  “Nice tie,” Jake said. He smiled, taking a second to run an appreciative gaze over my body,
before glancing at his phone.

  I took a couple of wobbly steps toward him, high heels clicking on the tile floor, and then made a playful grab for his cell. “Please tell me my naked body is more interesting than whatever it is you’re looking at.”

  He pulled his hand out of reach. “Sorry,” he said. “I really need to reply to this email. It won’t take long. Meet you in the bedroom in ten?”

  I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest, cupping my shoulders in my hands. All week I had imagined him dropping his briefcase on the floor and tearing off his own clothes the minute he saw me, the way he had in the beginning, before we got married, on the nights the kids were at Peter’s, or when we’d enjoy what we fondly called a “naked lunch.” (Since both of us were self-employed, we had the kind of flexibility in our schedules to pull off a daytime tryst.)

  One afternoon he had invited me over to his place, leaving the door unlocked so I could let myself in. “Jake?” I called out, once I’d stepped inside his condo. We’d been dating about four months at that point, sleeping together for three.

  “In here,” he replied. His voice floated down the hallway from his bedroom.

  I found him on the bed, already naked, vanilla-scented candles lit all around—they were my favorite, in almost every room of the small home I shared with the kids, so he had bought some for his place, too, a gesture I’d found endearing.

  But the candles didn’t hold my attention for long, because his hand was between his legs, stroking. His gaze locked on mine. “I’ve been thinking about you all morning,” he said, in a rough voice. “Your body. Your skin. I need your mouth on me. Now.”

  A zing of excitement bolted through me. It was a new experience, having a man speak in such blatant terms in the bedroom. I liked how it made me feel. Back then, it was clear that having sex with me wasn’t only a matter of want for Jake—it was a need.

  But eight years later, as I stood naked in front of my husband in our kitchen, he not only remained fully clothed, he was responding to an email rather than ravishing his wife. I turned around and headed upstairs to our bedroom, where he met me, as he had promised. I’d changed into my pajamas, and when he sat down on the side of our bed, I pretended to have my attention riveted on my iPad.

  “Hey,” he said, putting his hand on my leg. “I’m sorry, but I really did have to get that email out before my HR contact went home. She needed to know when to schedule the next round of interviews with her department managers.” Jake was a headhunter who worked for multiple technology firms around Seattle; he recruited candidates from all over the world, and then presented a selection of the best and brightest to the HR departments of the companies he served. With a global territory, he often ended up working all hours of the day and night: calls with someone in Japan at ten o’clock at night, a Skype interview with someone in France at two in the morning. The only way he could unplug was to literally shut off his phone, which was almost impossible to convince him to do. I understood this—my phone was the crux of my job as a real estate agent, too; I hesitated to turn it off for fear of missing out on a potential new client or an offer on one of my listings.

  “It’s fine,” I said, though my words were clipped. I wasn’t angry; I was hurt, and more than a little sad. I told myself that it wasn’t entirely his fault. I could have told him earlier in the week what I hoped our evening alone together might consist of. It wasn’t fair, really, to spring my naked body on him and expect him to react exactly how I wanted him to.

  “No, it’s not,” he said, taking iPad out of my hands. He set it on my nightstand and then kissed me, sweet and slow. “Let me make it up to you.”

  “I’m not really in the mood anymore,” I said, not wanting to seem retaliatory, but unable to summon any enthusiasm for sex. My injured feelings had shut down my desire, so we settled for spending the evening binge-watching House of Cards while eating an easy dinner of cheese, crackers, and grapes in bed, which, when I really thought about it, was a kind of intimacy all its own. I loved spending any time with Jake, no matter what we were doing. He was my best friend—my “person” as a character on Grey’s Anatomy once put it. Anything that happened to me, good or bad, the first one I wanted to share it with was him. I wouldn’t change anything significant about him—other than how, over the last year, he had ceased initiating sex.

  But now, Jake had suggested a date night. He wanted a do-over, and I was more than happy to indulge him. Maybe it would help us get back on track.

  I sent a text to my ex-husband, making sure that he would be picking up the kids from school. I didn’t want a scheduling issue to ruin my evening with Jake.

  “I’m on it,” was Peter’s terse reply, and I had to restrain myself from reminding him about the Friday that Jake and I went out of town for the weekend, and Ella’s third grade teacher had to wait two hours after school for Peter to show up. “Great!” I answered, knowing from past experience it was better to ignore his curtness and save my energy for the more serious co-parenting issues that might arise.

  Several hours later, Jake and I exited a popular Thai place near the Space Needle, and then strolled toward the garage where we’d parked. It was a warm evening. The night air was scented with a mix of flowering plum tree blossoms and exhaust from the busy downtown traffic. The Monorail clacked along above us, and a muffled beat pulsed inside a dance club across the street. The music became louder as the bouncer opened the door to let more people inside.

  “Hey,” I said, stopping on the sidewalk and looking up at Jake. “Want to get a drink over there?” I wasn’t ready for our evening out to end.

  “Really?” he said. “At a club, like grown-ups?” His mouth curled into a smile that lit up his blue eyes—the first part of him I fell in love with. There was a kindness in them, the reflection of a calm, grounded soul. Looking into them gave me a sense of peace. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was also six-two, with short, salt-and-pepper hair, broad shoulders, and a charming smile, but if I had to pick a favorite feature on my husband, it would forever and always be his eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling emboldened. “We never come downtown. We should take advantage of it.” Jake and I lived east of Seattle-proper, across the 520 floating bridge in a heavily populated, but picturesque suburb named Queens Ridge, which we chose for the excellent schools and the fact that it was on the outskirts of Redmond, where Peter now lived with his second wife, Kari, and their three-year old toddler, Ruby. The bulk of Jake’s tech company clients were headquartered on the Eastside, and most of the properties I sold were in the same area, so neither of us had much reason to venture west, into the city.

  “We could stop at the Tipsy Sailor on the way home,” Jake suggested. “Might not be as crowded as a club.”

  “We always go there,” I said, determined to shake up our routine. I tugged on his hand. “Come on. Please?” I batted my lashes at him like a full-blown Southern belle, and he laughed.

  “How can I say no to that face?” he asked.

  “Yay!” I said, and he laughed again as we jaywalked across the street.

  The night suddenly took on a more adventurous note as Jake paid the bouncer the twenty-dollar-per-person cover, and we entered the club. It was the kind of place we’d gone to a few times when we were dating, the loud dance music vibrating in our bodies as we sipped cocktails and shouted at each other, fruitlessly trying to be heard. This club, the Cove, was mostly dark, illuminated only by the hammered-metal sconces that covered the gray walls with a hazy, purple glow. I glanced down at the jeans and red, strappy tank top I’d chosen to wear, hoping that the place wasn’t swarming with college kids and that, at thirty-five, I wouldn’t feel a million years old.

  But as Jake and I slithered our way through the crowd to get to the bar, I surveyed the dance floor, full of bodies swaying and grinding to the thudding bass that pumped out of the speakers too loudly for me to identify a melody, and noticed that most people appeared either our age, or not much younger than us. Ja
ke was thirty-six, only a year older than me. There were men in slacks and button-downs with the sleeves rolled up, looking like they’d come straight from work to hit on women in outfits ranging from flowy spring dresses to jeans paired with more revealing, form-fitting tops. People crowded around us at the bar; we were lucky to have found a spot.

  “Can I get a double vodka soda with lime, and a whiskey, neat?” Jake leaned over to yell at the bartender, a pixie-cut blond girl in a tight black dress who looked barely old enough to drink alcohol, let alone be serving it. She bobbed her head, and I tucked myself next to my husband.

  Jake put his arm behind me, resting his large hand on the small of my back. He leaned over just as the bartender delivered our drinks. “You look beautiful tonight,” he said, loudly, over the music.

  Even with the twenty additional pounds I carried after having the kids, Jake had, from the moment we met, told me I was the prettiest woman in any room. Thankfully, most of that post-baby weight had settled in my tits and ass, and I generally took good care of myself with regular facials and weekly blow outs for my long, thick brown curls. I had insecurities of course—oh, the cottage cheese swell of my belly that would never, ever go away!—but for the most part, I was okay with how I looked.

  “Thank you, baby,” I said, taking a long pull of my cocktail, feeling the warmth of the vodka hit my stomach. “Whew! That’s strong!” I poked his chest. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

  “Maybe,” Jake said. He grinned. “We can get an Uber home, if we have to. Or stay in a hotel.”

  “Ella has a soccer game tomorrow morning,” I reminded him, and then wished I hadn’t had to, because I loved the way he had suggested something as fun and spontaneous as staying at a hotel. That was the Jake I fell in love with, not the Jake who responded to emails instead of bending his practically-naked wife over the kitchen counter. But he was one of the coaches for Ella’s team, and Peter was busy as head coach for Tucker’s baseball team. With both kids having activities on Saturday mornings, there was always at least one of us there to root them on—one of the few upsides to co-parenting with an ex-spouse.