At a Charity Auction, My Husband Sold My Best Friend the Seven Days novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Day One

Brett leaves for Shelby's, never comes back for the clinic, and Lorena learns she is pregnant alone; Shelby posts the bookcase from Lorena's sketch.

Brett was up at seven the next morning, and he was out the door by twenty to eight.

He loaded his tools into the truck.

He poured coffee into his travel mug and left the pot sitting on the counter, still full.

"I'll be back at ten," he said.

"What if the furniture is late?"

"It won't be."

"What if Shelby needs something else?"

He twisted the lid shut.

"I said I'd take you."

At ten to ten I put on my coat and sat in the living room with my purse on my knees.

His truck didn't turn into the drive.

At five past ten I called him.

It rang so long I thought it would go to voicemail.

When he picked up, I heard a drill in the background.

"I was just about to call you. The movers put two cabinets in the wrong room. I have to take them apart."

"My appointment is in twenty-five minutes."

"Go ahead and drive over. I'll meet you there."

"When?"

Somebody spoke close to the phone, and I knew the voice.

Brett covered the speaker.

I heard Shelby's laugh, then the drill again, then nothing I could make out.

He came back.

"An hour, at most."

"It'll be over by then."

"Lorena, the delivery company made the mistake. I can't leave the cabinets in pieces."

"You can."

He went quiet.

"Don't make me choose over something like this," he said.

He hung up.

I looked at the black screen, and then at the empty end table where the socks used to be.

Ten minutes later I drove to the clinic by myself.

The nurse took two tubes of blood and left me in a small room with two chairs.

The second chair stayed empty.

Brett didn't text.

When the doctor came in, she had a folder in her hand and she was smiling before she sat down.

"Congratulations, Lorena."

She slid the page across the desk.

"Your numbers and your dates say about five weeks. It's very early, so I want to repeat the blood work in forty-eight hours and make sure the levels climb."

The paper shook in my fingers.

"I'm really pregnant?"

"You are."

Four years.

Two failed treatments, and a drawer full of injections and appointment cards.

I'd learned to read the nurses' faces before they opened their mouths.

Now the word was mine.

Pregnant.

I put my hand flat on my stomach, though there was nothing to feel yet.

The doctor asked where my husband was.

I folded the report in thirds and slid it into the inside pocket of my purse.

"Work," I said. "Something came up."

In the parking lot my phone buzzed with a post from Shelby.

A video, captioned: Day One. Someone finally put my home first.

She stood in her living room holding two coffees.

Brett knelt by the far wall with a drill in his hand, fitting a long panel of wood.

When she handed him a cup, he looked up and smiled.

She laughed and brushed sawdust off his cheek.

Then the camera swung along the finished shelves.

Walnut.

Low cabinets under three rows of open shelving.

It was the sketch I had drawn on a napkin two years ago.

I had drawn it for my own studio wall, and I had shown it to Brett over dinner.

He had told me our old shop was too small for a wall like that.

He'd said he would build it once I moved.

I saved the video to my phone.

Then Brett's text arrived.

The furniture is running longer than expected. You can get home on your own, right?

I didn't answer him.

I did not drive home.

I sat in the clinic lot with the report in my purse and the engine off, and I made one decision.

I would let my husband keep his seven days.

I would just stop waiting for him to come back from them.

The clock on the dash said ten forty.

It was moving day, and I had a studio to move.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend