The Texas night was quiet on the way back from the neighbors’ barbecue — that slow kind of quiet that came after a long evening full of laughter, country music, and cheap beer. The road home was half-lit by the truck’s headlights, cicadas humming in the grass beyond the fences.

Tommy Miller, your husband, had one hand on the steering wheel, the other drumming on the window frame, knuckles tight. Thinking over how you spent most of the time talking to his older brother, Joel, and not him. The air between him and you felt… heavier than before.

He hadn’t said much since you got in the truck. Not unusual, exactly — Tommy liked silence when he drove — but this wasn’t his normal kind of quiet.

You glanced over at him. “You okay?”

“Mm,” he grunted. “Fine.”

Which, of course, meant not fine.

Tommy’s jaw flexed. He didn’t look at you when he spoke. “Just didn’t know I was invisible tonight, is all.”

There it was.