While He Built Her Home novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Blue Toothbrush

Valerie takes back the studio keys and keeps her pregnancy secret, then reads a text on Jared's phone that says he has already moved a toothbrush into Brynn's house.

Jared came home at midnight with the green ribbon folded in his jacket pocket.

I was at the kitchen island with the lights off, and the calendar was on the counter in front of me.

I had taken it down from the refrigerator myself.

"You froze the card," he said. "I tried to pay the bar tab and it declined in front of the whole committee."

"I froze it."

"Val, that was humiliating."

"Eighteen thousand six hundred dollars at a baby store was not?"

He stopped with one hand on the light switch.

"What baby store?"

"Larkin Baby and Nursery. Delivery to 41 Linden Court." I turned my phone around so the alert faced him. "That's Brynn's house."

He let out a short laugh and shook his head.

"That's her sister's baby shower. Brynn's helping her out, and she asked me to put the deposit on the card until Monday."

"My card."

"The company card. I'd have moved it back."

"It's the Linen and Lamp card, Jared. It has my lease deposit on it. And three weeks ago it paid for Brynn's bid."

His smile stayed where it was.

"Who told you that?"

"The woman at the donation table."

"She shouldn't have said."

"That's your answer?"

He crossed the kitchen and pulled out the stool next to mine.

"It was a donor credit, okay? The committee needed a big number to get the bidding going."

"And my money paid for it."

"I was going to cover it from the company float. You'd never have seen it."

"You bought her winning bid with my money."

"I fronted a credit. It's a charity auction. That's what a bid is."

"And you let her win."

"Nobody let anybody win. Brynn's been through a lot."

He reached for my hand across the counter, and I took it back.

"You promised me that week," I said.

"I promised you a lot of weeks."

"You circled it. In red."

"And I'm still there for your move, Val. Clayton can lend you a crew. It's seven days. In seven days it's over."

"You sleep at her house."

"In the study. On the couch. I'm not going to touch her."

He said it easily, with his shoulders loose.

I had spent four years trying to have this man's child.

Now he was telling me which room in another woman's house he would sleep in.

My hand was flat on my stomach under the edge of the counter.

I took it away.

He didn't know. I wasn't going to tell him now.

I had thought the test would be the best thing I ever put in his hands.

Standing in my own kitchen, I saw it would be a leash.

He would stay for it and apologize, and I would never know if he stayed for me or for the baby.

So the test stayed mine, and he would have to earn the rest.

"Give me your key to the Mill Street studio," I said.

"Val."

"And the key to the walnut crate, and the dispatch code for the trucks."

"They're company keys."

"You aren't using them for me, so you don't need them."

"They're company keys."

"Then Clayton can hand them to me tomorrow."

He took the keys from his ring.

He set them on the counter one by one, slowly, and waited for me to stop him.

I didn't.

"You're making this bigger than it is," he said.

"I'm making it exactly as big as it is."

"I'll be gone Monday morning. I'll call every night."

"Don't call every night."

He took the calendar off the counter. He ran his thumb over the red circle on Monday.

"I did circle it," he said, quietly. "I did mean it."

"When did you stop?"

He put the calendar down.

"I'm going to sleep in the guest room," he said. "You don't have to see me."

"I want you out of the house by seven on Monday."

"I said I'm going."

"You also said a weekend."

That landed. I watched it land, and he looked at the floor.

His phone buzzed on the island.

It was face up, close enough to read.

Brynn: Blue toothbrush is already in the cup by my sink. Get some sleep, love.

I read the whole line.

Jared saw me read it.

He took the phone and turned it over, and he didn't say a word.

The blue toothbrush was his. I had bought him that pack of three at the drugstore in August.

He had told me he lost it.

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