My Husband Kissed His Girl Best Friend in Front of 200 People, So I Filed for Divorce novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: On the Step

Alfie comes home after midnight to his bags on the step and Steph's texts on his phone, Tash files for divorce on the doorstep, and by morning the clip of her face is everywhere.

I didn't cry.

I got the suitcases down from the top of the wardrobe.

Then the roll of black bin bags from under the sink.

Six years of Alfie fit into two cases and five bags.

His work suits. His golf shoes. Fourteen Spain shirts.

The signed photo of a goalkeeper he'd made me hang in the hall.

I carried it all out to the front step in the rain and tied the bags shut so his shirts wouldn't get wet.

Even then, I was still being considerate.

At 12:40 a car pulled up at the kerb.

Steph's little white Fiat, engine running, wipers going.

Alfie got out of the passenger side and stopped dead at the gate.

He looked at the bags.

Then up at me in the doorway.

Behind him, Steph didn't turn the engine off.

Across the road, the upstairs light went on at number twelve.

Alfie came up the path and stepped over a bin bag.

He smelled of beer, rain and Steph's vanilla perfume.

"Are you done punishing me now?" he said.

I kept one hand on the door.

"Did you kiss her back?"

He dropped his keys into his jacket pocket instead of the bowl in the hall, because I was standing in the way of the bowl.

"We've been over this."

"No. You gave me excuses. I asked you a question."

He sighed.

"It lasted three seconds."

"That's not an answer."

"She was excited. Everyone was shoving. I'd had a few."

"So you kissed her back."

"I'm not doing a trial on my own doorstep."

"My doorstep," I said. "And while we're on it. Where's the loft money?"

That landed.

His eyes went to the Fiat, and back.

"It's an investment," he said. "For us."

"In what?"

"The Hound. I'm a partner. Forty percent. It's a proper business, Tash, it's going to make us a fortune."

"You gave Steph thirty-eight thousand pounds without asking me."

"I gave our pub thirty-eight thousand pounds."

"Our pub," I said.

His phone lit up in his hand.

He's never been able to hide a screen from me. He holds it.

Steph.

He tilted it away, too late.

You should have stayed with me. Tonight was supposed to be ours.

A second one landed while I watched.

Is she still being dramatic?

My chest went tight.

"What's ours, Alfie?"

"The match. She means the match."

"Then why should you have stayed with her?"

He shoved the phone in his pocket.

"You're twisting everything because you're angry."

"I'm angry because another woman kissed my husband on television and then sulked because he came home to me."

"She's my best friend."

"I'm your wife."

He threw his hands up.

"Why do you always make me pick?"

The words just sat there on the step between us, in the rain, with his bin bags.

"I shouldn't have to make you," I said.

"Steph's been in my life since I was nineteen."

"And I've been your wife for six years."

"That doesn't wipe out my history."

"I never asked you to wipe it out. I asked you to protect us."

He looked away, at the Fiat.

That was my answer.

I twisted my wedding ring off.

For one second he looked frightened.

Then his face changed.

"Don't be dramatic, Tash."

I didn't throw it at him.

I put it in my jeans pocket. It was mine. I'd decide what happened to it.

Then I took out my phone, opened the government website, and started the divorce application right there on the step.

"What are you doing?"

"Name," I said, typing. "Alfred James Seddon. Address. Well, I'll put your mum's."

"Tash. Stop it."

"Date of marriage."

He tried to take the phone.

I stepped back into the hall and he stopped, because his foot was on the threshold and number twelve's curtain had moved.

I typed in my card number.

Five hundred and ninety-three pounds.

I showed him the screen when it said Application submitted.

"You can't do this over one kiss."

"I'm not," I said. "I'm doing it because you still think the kiss is the problem."

"It's my house too. My name's on the deeds."

"Then sue me from her sofa."

I shut the door.

He hammered on it twice.

Then I heard the Fiat's door, and the bin bags dragging, and the engine pulling away.

I sat on the bottom stair and cancelled the anniversary dinner I'd booked for Friday at the Italian place he liked.

Then I took the ring out of my pocket and put it in Gran's jewellery box on the dressing table, next to her pearls.

I didn't sleep much.

At seven the knocking started again.

Not his knock.

A fist, and a voice I'd know anywhere.

"Natasha Cardew, open this door before I break it!"

My sister was on the step in her salon tunic with her phone held up.

"You're famous," Nic said.

She turned the screen to me.

The sports channel's page. A clip with a caption in white capitals.

THE WIFE.

It started on the kiss, Steph's legs round Alfie's waist, the whole pub roaring.

Then the camera swung away from them and found me.

Six feet away. Holding his pint. My face doing nothing at all.

Three million views.

Nic swiped.

Underneath, Steph had posted the clip again with her own face in the corner, crying with laughter.

When your mate's wife can't handle football culture.

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