Quick Exit

"I gotta go," you tell them and bolt out the door.

It's not the most graceful or suave of exits but you're out the door without any questions being asked. {if Intervene = false} Unfortunately your plan to sit in your car and observe them from through the large windows of the coffee shop has been completely ruined.{endif} As you quick walk to your car, you notice out of the side of your eye that both Matt and your wife are watching you from inside the coffee shop. {if Intervene = false}There's no way you can just sit in your parked car now or they'd notice.{endif} So you're **** to start the engine and drive out of the parking lot.

You head in the direction of your work place, so that it at least looks like you're going back where you said you'd be. As you're driving, you think up a cover story that you just went out get coffee and didn't use the pot in the office so you could stretch your legs. It's simple, and you think they'll buy it, although it might be suspicious that you didn't just say that before you ran out of the shop.

You drive around in a circle and come back to where you started, although you don't park in the lot beside the coffee shop. You park down the street, obscured by some other cars and signs. Although there's no way to see into the coffee shop from here, you can see when they leave. So you wait and watch.

It occurs to you that if they are hiding something, you may have just spooked them. Is that a good or a bad thing, you ponder. Criminals who know the police are after them sometimes make mistakes. On the other hand, knowing that you're watching might make them cover their tracks more carefully.

While you're still thinking about this, you see Matt and Ariana leave the coffee shop and cross the parking lot. Matt walks your wife to her car, where they embrace for a moment, then she gets in and leaves first. Matt heads to his car then and leaves as well, in a different direction. You sigh with relief.

Although {if Intervene = false}you keep thinking about why Matt and Ariana must have been meeting,{else} you keep thing about Matt flirting with your wife,{endif} you **** yourself to focus on Kali finally. It takes much longer than you would have liked but eventually you settle for Wicked Felina, a small downtown taco bar. At this point, you're so tired, you don't even care what it's like, but it's close to some bars and a hotel, so you make your choice and prepare head home already.

A terrifying thought crosses your mind however. What if Ariana and Matt only pretended to leave in opposite directions in order to fool you, and they met up elsewhere? Are you just being paranoid now? Not taking any chances, you speed back to your house. <<set speeding to yes>>

Your wife's car is in the driveway, alone. You glance down the street but don't see any cars that resemble Matt's. However, it's much later than you anticipated, so something could have happened while you were searching for a place to take Kali, and you missed it.

Entering the house, you find all the lights except for the hall lamp have been turned off. Quietly you get ready for bed in the dark and slide in beside your wife's sleeping figure. As your eyelids get heavy, you look over at Ariana and wonder, just how much can you trust your wife.