Backstabbing Friend's Self-Inflicted Shame novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Wedding Photo

"How long did you watch her building?" I said.

We were in the car outside my own house on Thursday night, with the engine off and the street dark.

Tate's calendar said dealer dinner until eleven.

Rafe looked at the windshield.

"Term one," I said. "Everything about Valeria."

"Three weeks."

"Every day?"

"Most of them. I sat across the street in a rented car with a thermos." He rubbed his face. "I saw you twice."

I turned in my seat.

"The first time you were carrying a lamp up the steps," he said. "A paper shade, still in the box. The second time you were with her on the sidewalk and she was laughing."

"And you didn't get out of the car."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't know who you were. By the second time I did, and I thought, there's another one."

"Another one," I said.

"Another woman she was working on."

I looked out at the dark windows of my house.

The anger arrived slowly and sat down in my chest.

"You watched me walk up those stairs with that lamp," I said, "and you let her tell me she'd been in a bad marriage, and you let me pay for the shade."

"I didn't know what she'd told you."

"You could have asked. You could have stood in the street and shouted my name."

"I wanted her more than I wanted to warn you." His voice was flat. "I'm not proud of it. I'm saying it because you asked."

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