Everyone Knew She'd Leave Me but Me novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Florist Text
Warner watches his fiancee step out of his best friend's car, hears her mother call him a gigolo, and sees his resignation letter on a coworker's phone. He walks away and finds his badge no longer opens the ballroom.
The company's eighth-anniversary party started at seven, and I was twenty minutes early.
I stood at the edge of the hotel parking lot with a gift bag in my hand.
Inside it was an oatmeal cashmere shawl for my future mother-in-law, Marlene.
It had cost eight hundred dollars, and Brooke had picked the color.
My phone showed her text from twelve minutes ago.
"Stuck at the florist with Mom. Go in without us. Love you."
I was reading it again when her white Audi turned into the space beside the loading dock.
I knew that car well, because I had paid its lease for three years.
The passenger door opened, and Dean Clanton climbed out.
Dean was my best friend since college, and in six weeks he was going to be my best man.
He checked his reflection in the window and grinned at something Brooke said.
Brooke came around the hood and straightened his tie with both hands.
She took her time doing it.
Dean's phone buzzed in his jacket. He glanced at the screen and thumbed it silent.
"My cousin Erin," he said. "She calls every night, I swear."
"Your cousin needs a hobby," Brooke said, and she laughed.
I had not heard her laugh like that in a year.
I tightened my grip on the bag and turned for the nearest door, which was the service entrance.
I wanted a wall to put my hand on before anyone saw my face.
The service corridor smelled like floor wax and warm trays.
Marlene's voice came from the doorway that led to the stage, so I stopped behind a rack of folding chairs.
"The venue is confirmed for the fourteenth," she said. "Everyone from your office is here tonight, so tell them about you and Dean."
The side door banged. Brooke and Dean had followed her in.
"Mom, keep your voice down," Brooke whispered.
"Why? I'm not printing that man's name on another place card."
Marlene got louder, not quieter.
"If Warner hears, good. He's a gigolo, Brooke. He's lived in your home for four years. Dean is a hundred times the man."
It was not her home.
The condo was in my name, and so was the Audi's lease, and so was the forty-one thousand dollars sitting in the Marlowe Hotel's deposit account.
I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.
"Hey, Warner."
Someone behind me had said it in a normal voice.
A man from accounting stood in the corridor with his phone held out, and he looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.
I had eaten lunch with him every Thursday for six years.
On his screen was a letter with my name at the bottom.
"Please accept this as my formal resignation, effective immediately."
I had never seen it before.
"I didn't write that," I said.
"It went out to the whole company at noon, from your email." He locked the screen and tried to smile. "Look, everyone already knows about Brooke and Dean. We just kept it to ourselves."
"Everyone."
"Dean said you were fine with it. He said you'd agreed, and that you were leaving after tonight to start over somewhere." He shrugged helplessly. "He signs our bonuses, man."
I looked past him.
Marlene, Brooke and Dean were standing in the doorway, staring at me.
Brooke's face went white. She stepped forward and touched my sleeve.
"Warner, honey. It's not what it looks like."
Dean was already smiling, the friendly smile he used on clients.
"Buddy. I was going to tell you."
"After the wedding?" I said.
He didn't answer.
Marlene crossed her arms over her pearls and lifted her chin.
"Well. Now you know. I'd call that a mercy."
I held out the gift bag.
She took it before she thought about it.
"That's eight hundred dollars of cashmere," I said. "It was for the mother of the bride. Keep it."
I turned to Brooke.
"You told me you were at the florist."
"I was going to be," she said.
I took my hand off the wall.
I did not shout, and I did not beg.
Eight years at that company, four years with her, and I had spent most of them making sure nobody ever had to worry about me.
So I stepped out.
I walked back through the corridor, past the wait staff with their trays, and straight for the ballroom doors.
I was going to stand in front of the whole company and say it out loud myself.
The ballroom doors had a card reader beside them.
I held my badge against it.
The light went red.
I tried again. Red.
A security guard I had known for years stepped in front of me and wouldn't meet my eyes.
My phone buzzed with a company-wide email from the CEO.
"Please join me in thanking Warner Stancliffe for eight years of service. His last day is today."
It had been sent four minutes ago.
"Sorry, Mr. Stancliffe," the guard said. "You're not on the list anymore."
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