My Husband Kissed His Girl Best Friend in Front of 200 People, So I Filed for Divorce novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Wife

In Nic's salon the presenter who kept the camera on her face comes to apologise, Alfie sends roses and asks her to pause the divorce, and Steph posts herself wearing Tash's scarf.

"You're not sitting in that house all day watching yourself," Nic said. "Get your shoes on."

By nine I was in the back chair of her salon on North Street with a cup of tea I hadn't asked for and a foil cap on my head.

"I didn't want highlights," I said.

"You're getting highlights. You're on the internet. Hold still."

The salon was already full.

The woman who runs the bakery. Two girls from the nail bar next door. A woman I'd never seen who'd come in for a fringe trim and stayed for the gossip.

Every one of them had watched the clip.

"Your face," said the nail girl, admiring. "You didn't even blink."

"I was in shock."

"You looked like a hitman," said the baker.

Nic read the comments out loud from her phone while she painted my hair.

"Team The Wife. Team The Wife. Somebody get this woman a lawyer and a margarita. Oh, here's a nice one. If my husband did that I'd be in prison."

"Read the other ones," I said.

She scrolled with her thumb and her mouth went flat.

"Some people are idiots."

"Read them."

"Fine. Jealous much. It's literally just football, love. She looks like she's never had fun in her life."

The whole salon booed.

That helped more than it should have.

The bell over the door went.

The room went quiet.

A very tall man ducked in under the door frame, wiping rain off his face with his sleeve.

Short dark hair. Broad as a door. A nose that had clearly been broken at least twice.

The fringe-trim woman whispered, "That's Nathan Coombes."

Nic pointed her tint brush at him.

"We're closed."

"Your sign says open."

"It's closed for you."

He held up both hands.

"Fair enough. I'm not here for a haircut." He looked past her, at me in my foil. "I'm here to say sorry to her."

I knew the face now.

He'd played centre-back for City when Gran still watched the matches on her little telly, shouting at the referee.

Now he did the crowd segments for the sports channel.

He'd had the microphone last night.

"You're the reason three million people have seen me holding a pint," I said.

"I am." He didn't flinch. "My cameraman wanted to stay on the kiss. I told him to find you."

"Why?"

"Because everyone was cheering, and you weren't." He shrugged his huge shoulders. "That was the story."

"I'm a story now."

"You were a story the second she climbed the bar. I just pointed at it."

Nic narrowed her eyes. "He's quite good at talking."

"I've been told it's my only skill since the knee." He looked back at me. "I can get it taken down. I've already asked. My producer will throw a tantrum, but I can do it."

I thought about it.

About Steph crying with laughter in the corner of my own face.

"Leave it up," I said.

He raised his eyebrows.

"You're sure?"

"I didn't do anything wrong. I stood there." I picked at the foil by my ear. "Let them look."

His expression softened.

Not pity. I'd have hated pity.

He looked impressed.

"Fair play," he said quietly.

Nic folded her arms. "Is that it? You came all this way to say sorry?"

"I came round the corner. I live in Clifton, but the van's parked outside the Hound." He hesitated. "There's one more thing. You should hear it from me."

"Go on."

"Your husband's friend rang my producer this morning. She's booked us back for Sunday. The final." He said the next part carefully. "She wants us to recreate the moment."

The salon gasped as one.

"Recreate it," Nic said. "With who?"

"She didn't say. I think we can all guess."

I laughed. I didn't mean to.

It was that or throw my tea.

"She's selling it," I said. "My marriage is her opening offer."

"Pretty much."

"And you're going to film it."

"I'm going to be there," he said. "What I point the camera at is my call."

He held my eyes a second longer than he needed to.

Then he nodded to the room, ducked back under the door frame and was gone.

"Well," said the baker. "I'd let him point at me."

The salon howled.

I was still laughing when the delivery man came in with roses.

Two dozen, red, in a box with a bow.

The card was in Alfie's handwriting, which meant he'd gone to the shop himself, which meant he was frightened.

Tashy. I love you. Can we pause it and talk properly? I've booked us in with a counsellor on Thursday at 6. Please. A x

There was a business card tucked behind it. A couples therapist in Redland.

Nic took the card off me and read it twice.

"Pause it," she said. "Like it's a telly box set."

"He's never booked anything in his life," I said. "I book the dentist for him."

"So why now?"

That was a good question.

He hadn't been sorry on the step.

He'd been sorry since I said the word divorce.

I gave the roses to the nail girls.

My phone buzzed in my lap.

I'd blocked Steph, but the fringe-trim woman followed Steph, and she held her screen out to me without a word.

A new post, ten minutes old.

Steph in the Gold Hound, behind the bar, pouting at the camera.

Round her neck was a red-and-gold scarf.

Mine.

The creases from my folding were still in it.

Lucky scarf for the final. Found it lying about.

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