My Husband Kissed Her on the Kiss Cam, So I Left novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: On the Lawn

At dawn Hallie puts Colby, Delaney and their bags on the front lawn in front of the neighbors, and learns the savings are gone into Delaney's new ring.

At six forty in the morning, the lights were on in my house.

Bridget parked behind Colby's truck in the driveway, and I sat there with my hand on the door.

The snow on the lawn hadn't been touched, and the porch light was still burning from the night before.

"You can still change your mind," Bridget said. "We can go get waffles."

"It's my house."

"Then let's go be rude in it."

She took the bat from the back seat, which I told her was not necessary.

"It's not for hitting," she said. "It's for stage presence."

I let myself in with my own key.

The kitchen smelled like butter and coffee.

Delaney stood at my stove in my gray robe, flipping an egg in my good pan, humming.

Colby sat at the island in his boxers and a Falcons shirt, scrolling his phone.

They both looked up.

Delaney smiled, bright and sorry and a little tired.

"Hal," she said. "Thank God. We were so worried. Do you want eggs?"

Colby slid off the stool.

"Babe. Let's talk. Just us."

"No."

"Hal."

"Both of you, get your things and go."

Colby let out a breath through his nose.

"Come on. It's six in the morning. Delaney's place has a leak, I told you. Where's she supposed to go?"

"Anywhere."

"This is my house too."

"It has both our names on it," I said. "It has my grandmother's money in the walls. Get your things."

Nobody moved.

So I walked to the hall closet and took out Delaney's bag, the small striped one I'd seen on my bed three hundred times and never thought about.

I carried it to the front door and put it on the porch.

Then I went upstairs and took Colby's duffel out from under our bed, and I put in a pair of jeans, a sweater and his razor.

I could hear them whispering in the kitchen.

When I came down, Colby was in front of the door with his arms out.

"You're doing this over a kiss cam."

"I'm doing it over six years."

"That's not fair."

Bridget stepped up beside me, holding the bat across her chest.

"Neither is this," she said pleasantly. "Move, or I tell everyone on this street why you were in your underwear at dawn."

Colby moved.

I opened the door, and carried his duffel out, and set it in the snow.

It sat there, bright blue against the white.

Across the street, a man in a robe stood at his mailbox, holding a newspaper he was not reading.

Two doors down, someone's curtain twitched.

Delaney came out last, in her coat and my robe, her bare feet in her boots.

"Oh, Hallie, don't," she said, soft and wounded. "We're all just tired."

"Leave the robe," I said.

She went still.

Then, very slowly, she untied the belt and gave it to me with a look I could not read.

It was almost amusement.

She stood on my lawn in her leggings and her jersey, number nine, still wearing the thin chain at her neck.

Her left hand came up to tuck her hair behind her ear.

A diamond caught the early light.

It was a big, square stone on a thin gold band, on the ring finger.

I hadn't seen it before.

"That's new," I said.

She put her hand down quickly. "It's a gift."

"From who?"

Nobody answered.

I took out my phone, because suddenly I didn't need them to.

I opened our savings account, the one with my grandmother's money in it, the one we'd called the house fund.

I had put forty-one thousand dollars into it over six years.

I looked at the balance.

It said two hundred and twelve dollars.

The street was very quiet.

Colby looked at the snow, and then at Bridget's bat, and then at me.

"I was going to tell you," he said.

"Where is it?"

"Hal, listen to me. It's a long story. It was an investment."

"In what?"

He rubbed his neck.

"Nine thousand of it was the ring."

I stared at him.

"And the rest?"

For the first time all morning, he didn't smile.

"The rest is none of your business," he said, "and it never was."

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