Ellie and Dylan arrived home before midnight, and the two of them brought a strange tension into the home. "How did the party go?" Clay asked hesitantly.

"It sucked," Ellie said. "Boring as fuck. I feel exhausted. I'm heading to bed." She wandered into their bedroom without giving him a goodnight kiss, which wasn't unusual for her.

However, Clay couldn't help but notice she'd neglected to say goodbye to Dylan.

"What happened at the party, really?" he asked, and that was when he noticed that Dylan looked upset and resigned, and he simultaneously craved and feared his answer.

"Well, you don't have to worry about Ellie finding out about Trina. She already knows. She's known for a while, apparently. And she hardly cares. She cares that I knew, and she cares that Phillip knew, and she cares that Lana might think she and Phillip had a smooching session behind closed doors, but she doesn't care that you went behind her back and slept with another woman. That should be a weight off of your chest."

Clay's eyes darted to his closed bedroom door, and he lowered his voice. "Are you being serious right now?"

"I wish I weren't. Where's Talia?"

Clay nodded to the couch where he'd put Talia to bed, but at that point, he barely registered what was happening.

Ellie knew about Trina.

Ellie had known about Trina.

Though Dylan said a weight would be lifted off of Clay's chest, Clay now felt an enormous weight crushing him.

He didn't remember saying goodbye to Dylan; he just remembered filling two whiskey glasses, drinking them slowly, preparing himself for his encounter with Ellie.

Slowly opening their bedroom door, he found the lights were off, and he listened for the sounds of Ellie's breathing. Not hearing the usual rhythmic pattern, he realized she must still be awake.

He crawled into bed beside her, finding her facing away from his side of the bed, and he said, simply, "You know."

"Yep. I used to be the only one, but not anymore. Great job keeping it a secret."

"That's what you're mad about? That I didn't keep it a secret?"

Ellie turned over to face him. "Trina was supposed to be your side dish, Clay. You weren't supposed to give her any illusions about your main-dish future together. You were supposed to keep this clean. But this...this is sloppy. Now what do you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know."

Ellie sat up, and in a much louder voice, said, "You know what I think? That everyone is going to find out, Clay. Another scandal to taint our family's reputation. And you know who has to suffer? Our son. Who's going to want their kids to be friends with a kid whose dad has no morals?"

"I'm sorry Ellie."

"Please. Let me sleep. You can sleep on the couch." She sank back down into their bed, rolling over and pulling a pillow over her head.

Heeding her request, Clay went to the great room to try and fall asleep himself, but he couldn't. He found himself back in the kitchen, another glass of whiskey in his hand.

In the middle of the night, he tried to go into their bedroom, thinking he could talk to Ellie, but he found their bedroom door locked, and decided it would be better to wait until morning. Back on the couch, he finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

The morning brought feelings of grogginess, and in a daze, he went on his laptop and went to the local newspaper's website, not because he cared about the news when he had so many of his own problems to deal with, but because he wanted to distract himself.

The featured article caught his eye, and as he read it, he learned that he wasn't the only one who had a wretched night.

Phillip Smith's local office had been destroyed in another act of arson, around two a.m.