She wasn’t really suspicious by nature. She’d never really worried about having a guy cheat on her before. True, she had done a little cheating herself—and that might have been why it never occurred to her that she might be on the other end of an infidelity. But Jim had put her in a whole new place, and she was definitely sure that she didn’t enjoy that.

            So when he left for a sales call on a random Tuesday afternoon, she decided to take advantage of the chance to do a little investigating. She meandered over to his empty desk, ignoring the sharp glance from Pam, and opened the top drawer. Pencils, pens, some old receipts from Starbucks. Nothing interesting there. She moved over to the next drawer. Files. Crap, this wasn’t helping at all.

            She opened the bottom drawer and felt that drop in her stomach that she’d been expecting from the moment she sat down in his chair. The drawer was practically empty, and if she hadn’t been looking for something, she might not have even noticed the picture in the corner. It was lying facedown, but she knew whose picture it was without turning it over. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the photo and slammed the drawer, then walked back to her own desk without a word.

            When Jim got back from his sales call, she gave him a tight smile and tried to pretend that she wasn’t hiding anything. But when he came over at 4:57 to see if she was ready to head out, she told him that she was just going to take the bus home. He knew something was wrong—she hated public transportation—but he didn’t say anything about it. He just nodded, told her he’d see her at her place that night, and walked away. She noticed that he stopped to say something to Pam, who smiled a little and waved as he left.

            She stared at the picture the whole ride home, gripping the edges and trying to resist the urge to rip the damn thing up. She didn’t know when this picture was taken, or where they were, but she knew that she had never seen Pam so happy as she was here, grinning up at Jim, ignoring the camera altogether. And even though his goofy smile was directed at the photographer, she knew that all of his attention was really focused on Pam.

            He knocked on her door that night to pick her up for their date, and she let him in without a word. He sat down on the couch while she went to get her purse; she took longer than she needed, hoping that he would notice the picture on the coffee table in front of him. When she wandered back into her living room, he was sitting at the edge of the couch, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.

            “So,” she said. “I guess we need to have another talk.”