System Husband: One Divorce and I'm Gone novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: His Father's Watch

Nolan goes back for his father's watch and finds Brody wearing it on camera. He takes it back in front of Brody's friends.

I had left one thing behind in that house, and I wasn't leaving without it.

"Five minutes," Millie said, and parked her truck across the end of the driveway so nobody could block us in.

"Wait in the truck."

"I'm a paramedic. I've walked into worse than your wife's boyfriend."

"He's not my..." I stopped. "Fine. Come."

It was Monday evening, and every light in the house was on.

Music thumped through the front windows.

I had paid for those windows.

I used my key, because the system had never taken my key, and the front hall was full of people I had never seen.

Three men in gym clothes stood by two women with ring lights.

The living room table held a row of protein shakers and a cake that said CONGRATS BAE in pink icing.

Someone had moved my father's chair against the wall.

Nobody asked who I was.

I went down the ground-floor hall to the bedroom I had built for Margot three years ago.

It had a wide doorway, no step, and a bed raised so she could stand without strain.

The bathroom drawer was open.

The watch was gone.

It was a plain steel watch with a scratch across the face, and my father had worn it every day on the loading dock for thirty years.

It was the one thing I owned that had been his.

I stood in the doorway for a moment.

Then I walked back down the hall toward the music.

Brody was in the middle of the living room with his phone on a stand and a crowd arranged in front of it.

He was holding up his left arm.

"Okay, so, a little treasure from the house," he said. "Found this in the old husband's sock drawer, and honestly? Vintage. You can't buy this. Look at the dial on that."

The watch hung loose on his wrist.

"Take it off," I said.

The crowd turned.

Brody turned too, slowly, with a smile built for the lens.

"Hey, there he is," he said. "Everyone, say hi to the ex. He's here for his stuff."

"I'm here for that."

I nodded at the wrist.

"This old thing?" He rattled it. "Dude, finders keepers. It was in a drawer in my girlfriend's house."

"It's my father's."

"And I'm sure he'd be thrilled it's getting some air."

Somebody laughed in the back.

It was a woman with a ring light, and she stopped when she saw my face.

I crossed the room.

I was not fast, but I had spent twelve years lifting oak boards onto a table saw.

Brody had spent twelve years lifting a phone.

I took his wrist in my left hand and turned it palm up.

"Hey," he said. "Hey, you can't..."

My thumb found the clasp.

He swung at me with his free hand.

It was a wide, slow punch, and I leaned back half a step and it went past my ear and kept going.

His own weight pulled him round.

His elbow caught the table, and the whole row of protein shakers went over.

CONGRATS BAE slid off the end and landed icing-down on the rug.

Brody sat down hard in the middle of it.

The watch was in my hand.

I hadn't felt it come off.

For a second the only sound in the room was the music, still thumping, and then somebody turned it off.

"Oh my God," Brody said. He looked at the cake, then at his shirt, then at the red light on the stand. "Are you getting this? Tell me you're getting this."

"We're live," said one of the women, in a very small voice.

"He assaulted me," Brody said, to the whole phone. "You all saw that. He came into my house, he put his hands on me..."

"I'd like you to tell them who swung first," Millie said from the doorway, her arms folded. "Go ahead. It's on camera."

Nobody said anything.

Brody's face worked.

I looked down at the watch.

The scratch on the glass was the same.

I strapped it onto my wrist, and the leather was still warm from his skin.

It was the first thing I'd taken back in six years.

The front door opened behind us.

I knew the sound of her heels.

"What is going on?" Margot said.

She stood in the hall in her good coat with her car keys still in her hand.

She took in the cake, the shakers, the crowd with their phones up and Brody on the floor in icing.

Then she saw me, and the watch.

"Margot, babe," Brody said, and his voice cracked in a way I'd bet he had practiced. "Your ex came in here and attacked me. I think my wrist is sprained."

She crossed the room and knelt beside him.

She did not look at me when she asked, "Are you hurt?"

"I'm in a lot of pain."

"He took my father's watch off your arm," I said. "You were wearing it."

"I didn't know it was..." Brody began.

"You knew," Margot said, so softly it surprised me.

She stood up slowly.

Her hand went to her chest and came down again fast.

Her colour was bad, a grey that had nothing to do with the lighting.

She turned to me.

"Nolan," she said. "This is my house, and these are my guests. I want you to apologize to him."

The whole room went quiet again.

Millie opened her mouth.

I looked at my wife.

She was asking me to say sorry, in front of thirty phones, for taking back my own father's watch.

I had said no to her once in public, that morning, over a suitcase, and this was a thousand times bigger.

"No," I said.

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