Better Than My Ex novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Passenger Seat

Levi opened the passenger door and I got in.

He started the engine and pulled away from the curb without a word.

Bryson stood on the sidewalk in the mirror, his arms hanging at his sides, getting smaller.

We drove four blocks and I said, "Pull over."

He pulled over on a quiet street lined with parked cars and cut the engine.

"What does he mean?" I said. "Ask him how long he's known."

Levi's hands stayed on the wheel.

"Levi."

"Two years ago," he said. "In March."

I waited.

"I had a lunch in Sausalito with an investor, at a place on the water."

"I came out onto the deck and they were at the far end of it."

"Who?"

"Bryson and Lydia." He kept his eyes on the windshield. "She was sitting on his lap. They were kissing."

I had known there was something.

I'd known since the safe. But hearing it in the quiet of a parked car turned it into a fact.

"Christopher was alive," I said.

"He was in the hospital in San Francisco that week. I read about it later, in the company newsletter."

"You saw them kiss. Two years ago."

"Yes."

"And you never said a word."

He turned his head and looked at me for the first time.

"I wanted to," he said. "I sat in my car for an hour working out how."

"And?"

"And I thought about what would happen if I told you."

"You'd have asked me why I was in Sausalito. You'd have thought I was lying to take Bryson's place."

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