Chapter 2Peel Your Own Damn Shrimp

I didn't drive straight to The Belvedere.

First, I walked across the lot to the security room next to the main warehouse.

I logged into the server and pulled up the archived photos from the company’s monthly dinners spanning the last three months.

Harrison Seafood had a tradition: at the end of every month, the company footed the bill for a massive seafood dinner at one of our partner restaurants.

I rarely went. I was always too busy.

While they were at a corner table drinking wine, I was usually sitting on a crate outside the deep freeze, eating a stale sandwich. But the HR and Admin teams always took photos and dumped them into the company Slack channel. I never looked at them.

Today, I clicked through them. One by one.

Photo one.

A long banquet table. Two dozen people. Glasses raised.

Brad sat at the head of the table.

Sitting immediately to his right was a young woman. Long hair, a white dress, a blindingly sweet smile.

I knew her. Madison Foster.

She had come to the company eight years ago as a college intern. She eventually got hired full-time. Her current title was "Director of Administration."

I clicked next.

Photo two.

Brad, looking down. In front of him sat a massive plate of prawns.

He was peeling them.

The shelled shrimp were being placed delicately onto Madison’s plate.

Photo three.

Madison, tilting her head, smiling softly. She held a piece of shrimp with her chopsticks, her eyes locked on Brad.

Brad was smiling back.

I kept scrolling backward in time.

Last month.

The month before that.

Three months ago.

Six months ago.

Every single company dinner. Every single photo.

He was peeling shrimp for her.

Peeling them, lining them up perfectly, and placing them on her porcelain plate. She would smile. He would smile.

I closed the photo viewer.

A memory floated to the surface. During our first year of marriage, we went out to dinner, and I asked Brad to help me shell my shrimp.

I have a mild contact allergy to the protein in crustacean shells—if my bare hands touch the raw edges, I break out in painful hives. The meat itself is perfectly fine for me to eat, but the shelling process is a nightmare.

What had been his reaction?

He’d scoffed. "You don't know how to peel them yourself? Grow up, Jo."

Then he pulled the entire platter to his side of the table and ate them all himself.

Since that day, I never asked him to peel a single shrimp for me.

Eight years.

He hadn't peeled one for me in eight years. He found it too much of a hassle.

But he had peeled them for Madison. For eight years.

Every company dinner. Every single piece.

Peeled, pristine, and placed on her plate.

I stared at the image of him looking down at his hands, shelling the seafood. He looked so meticulous. So unbelievably tender.

He had never once looked at me like that.

"Carol," I said into my phone.

"I'm here."

"What is Madison’s monthly salary?"

"Eighteen thousand," Carol replied, her voice tinged with a sudden caution. "She's the Director of Administration, so..."

"Director of Administration," I repeated flatly. "What are her actual office hours?"

Silence hung on the line.

"Tell me the truth, Carol."

"...She rolls in around ten, leaves by four. Sometimes she doesn't show up at all."

"Who approves her timesheets?"

"Mr. Harrison."

"Okay."

I stood up, my chair scraping loudly against the linoleum.

"I have what I need."