Title: Pretense
Summary: Karen Stottlemeyerpretended not to know.
Pairing: Disher/Stottlemeyer
Rating: PG
A/N: Extra special thanks for the beta, Kelly. I appreciate it.

Karen Stottlemeyer pretended not to know.

It was easier, playing at being oblivious. She and Leland had two boys – they had a good partnership. The fact that it had stopped being a marriage was one of the things she pretended not to notice. But she was the kooky artist who was self-absorbed and never observed the circumstances around her, so she was sure Leland had no clue about her little charade.

The knowledge that her husband had been seeing someone else hadn't been so much of a shock. Their marriage was far from perfect, and her husband was human. She understood that. Besides, she wasn't about to be the pot calling the kettle black.

The actual shock had come when she'd found out the identity of the person he was seeing. At first, she'd suspected it was that Sharona woman, with the hair and the voice, but she'd come and gone, and Leland hadn't changed his behavior, so it clearly had to have been someone else. It certainly was.

Realizing that it was Randy Disher had been quite surreal.

But she knew it had to be. She'd caught them interacting in the kitchen, once, when Randy had been invited over for dinner. It was small, but the brief touch Leland placed on Randy's lower back had been very telling. She was a filmmaker, after all – subtleties were loud.

She'd ducked out of the kitchen, then, not giving them a chance to notice her, and they'd gone on to have a nice dinner. Karen smiled and laughed, talking to her husband and her husband's lover, acting as if she didn't know. Perhaps she should've been an actress, instead.

She wondered, sometimes, about them, but didn't spend too much time dwelling on it. Randy Disher made her Leland happy in a way she couldn't. And she wasn't a bitter woman – well, not most of the time – so she feigned obliviousness, pretending to not have a clue.

Occasionally, she wished she didn't have to pretend.

-End