92 Days Before Our Wedding, My Best Friend Won Thanksgiving With My Fiancé novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Midnight Screenshot

Gwen and Kirk come to her door at midnight, and Gwen's scroll shows Preston arranged the pot in October.

At midnight someone knocked on my door three times, hard.

I looked through the peephole.

Gwen stood in the hallway with her coat on over her party dress, and her brother stood behind her holding a thermos.

I knew Kirk Lanigan a little.

He was an ER nurse, four years older than Gwen, and he had been at the party all night in a corner by the bookcase.

I opened the door.

"I'm so sorry," Gwen said, and her face crumpled before she finished the sentence. "I'm so, so sorry. I should have stopped it."

"Come in," I said.

She came in and sat on the arm of my couch, and Kirk stayed in the doorway until I nodded at him.

He set the thermos on my counter.

"Soup," he said. "Gwen made it for a fight she didn't know was coming."

"It's tomato," Gwen said, and started to cry.

I didn't cry.

I found three mugs and poured the soup, because my hands needed something to do.

"Did you see the story?" I asked.

"Everyone saw the story," Gwen said. "It was up for four minutes and then Kendall deleted it. A woman from Preston's office screenshotted it."

She held out her phone.

There was the champagne, the nightstand, and Preston's wrist.

The screenshot also showed a second slide that I hadn't seen.

It was the winning card, held up to the camera in Kendall's free hand.

A ten, drawn in thick blue marker, and under it a small heart.

I looked at the heart for a long moment.

I typed to Preston: Call me right now.

The message said Delivered, and then nothing.

Kirk watched me put the phone face down.

"Matilda," Kirk said.

It was the first real question anyone had asked me all night.

"At the party, when you wrote the zero. Did you want to?"

"No."

"Did anyone make you?"

"Preston asked me to."

"Did he say why?"

"He said it was only fair."

Kirk nodded slowly.

"Fair to who?"

I didn't have an answer, and he didn't wait for one.

He just leaned back against my counter and drank his soup.

Gwen wiped her face with her sleeve.

"There's something I have to tell you," she said. "I've been trying to figure out how to say it since we left the party."

"Say it."

"Preston asked me to run the game this year."

I put my mug down.

"You run it every year."

"He asked me in October. He said he wanted to do something big for the holidays. A grand prize. He said the suite was already a gift from his firm and he wanted to give it to the group."

"And you said yes."

"I thought it was sweet." Her voice broke. "I thought, he's treating all of us. He told me not to mention it to you, because he wanted it to be a surprise."

"It was a surprise."

"I know."

I took a breath through my nose.

"Did he tell you who would win?"

Gwen hesitated.

That was enough.

"Gwen."

"He said that Kendall had always wanted to see Nashville," she said. "He said to put her in the box last, so she could pick her number after seeing the others. I thought it was a joke. I thought he meant for her to have a little fun."

"She wrote ten after seeing the others," I said.

"She saw that nobody else went past seven."

"And my zero."

Gwen put her hand over her mouth.

Kirk finished his soup and rinsed his mug in my sink, which I noticed because Preston never did.

"I can show you," Gwen said. "I kept the messages. I didn't think I'd ever need to."

"Show me."

She scrolled for a long time.

Her thumb stopped on a conversation labeled Preston H., and she turned the phone toward me.

I read the first message, dated October 9.

I read it twice.

Put Kendall's name in the pot last. Don't tell Matilda. She'll only worry about it.

Under it, Gwen had replied with a thumbs up.

Under that, Preston had written at 2 a.m.: Thanks. You're family.

"I'm so sorry," Gwen whispered.

"You didn't know."

"I should have."

"You didn't," Kirk said to her, quietly, and she leaned into his side and cried into his coat.

I stood in my own living room and read the message a third time.

Don't tell Matilda.

For six weeks he had known exactly how the night would end.

He had eaten dinner with me every Sunday of those six weeks.

He had held my hand at the cake tasting.

He had asked which color napkins I liked, and when I said sage, he said, "Sage it is."

"Matilda," Kirk said, and held out his phone. "Take this."

"Why?"

"Because yours is going to ring all night, and you shouldn't be alone with it."

His number was already in the screen.

I took the phone and saved it under his name.

At the door Gwen turned and hugged me hard.

"Whatever you decide," she said, "I'm on your side."

"I know."

When they were gone I locked the door and sat down at the dining table.

My own phone lit up, and the name on it was Preston.

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