He Gave His Female Best Friend My 5th Anniversary Trip, Then Bet I Wouldn't Leave novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Patio
Leah stands outside a half-open patio door with a pregnancy report and hears her husband give her seat to his female best friend and bet five hundred dollars that she will still drive them to the airport. She steps away and texts her sister: Saturday morning.
My husband gave his female best friend my seat on our fifth-anniversary trip, and I heard him do it through a half-open door.
"Look, it's only a seat," Derek said easily. "Taryn gets it. Leah can drive us to the airport."
I froze on the back step of his friend's house that Thursday evening.
In my purse were a white clinic envelope and a pair of tiny cream socks.
I was six weeks pregnant, after two years of trying.
I had planned to tell him on the Saturday flight, with the socks in his lap.
Inside, his friend set a beer bottle down.
"It's your fifth anniversary, man," he said. "She worked three months of overtime for that suite."
"And the upgrades," another voice added. "You gave her ticket away and you still want her to drive you?"
Derek laughed.
"If she was going to leave, she'd have done it last year."
My fingers tightened on my purse strap.
"Last year I missed our anniversary dinner," he went on. "She sat in a restaurant for two hours."
"And when I got home at midnight, she'd kept my plate warm in the oven."
Everyone at the table laughed.
I remembered that night.
I had reheated his dinner because he held me at the door, said he was sorry and promised never to put me second again.
Now he was using it as proof.
His friend pulled five hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and laid them on the glass table.
"Five hundred says you're calling a cab Saturday, once you tell her she's not coming."
Derek took out his own wallet.
I could see him clearly through the screen, and his hand was perfectly steady.
He counted out five bills and laid them next to the others.
"Six o'clock Saturday morning," he said. "She'll have the SUV in the driveway. She'll even help load Taryn's bags."
Taryn sat beside him in his old college sweatshirt, her purse on the chair where I usually sat.
She tapped her bottle against his.
"Easiest money you'll ever make."
I looked down at the envelope inside my bag.
On the drive over, I had kept picturing his face.
Would he see the socks first?
Would he pull me into his arms before he finished reading the report?
I slowly closed the zipper.
"Will three surfboards even fit?" asked the friend who surfed.
"Her SUV takes all of them," Derek said. "That's why she's driving."
Taryn laughed. "Ask her to pack snacks for the plane while you're at it."
He didn't tell her to stop.
"She cooked a whole lasagna for the night we land," he said. "Labeled, in the freezer. Dinner's handled."
I had cooked it Wednesday night after another late shift, so we wouldn't have to think about dinner when we came home.
"And when she asks why I'm going?" Taryn said.
"You just broke up with Levi," Derek said. "You need your friends."
Taryn tipped her chair back. "Right. And relax, we're basically brothers. I've had ten years to go after you if I wanted to."
She grinned into her bottle.
"If I had, your wife wouldn't have lasted a week."
Derek grinned back.
I waited for him to say my name.
I waited for him to remind her whose anniversary it was, or who had paid for the hotel they were planning.
He reached for his beer instead.
The clinic envelope pressed against my palm through the lining of the purse.
That afternoon, I had thought the hardest part of my week would be keeping the baby secret until Saturday.
So I stepped out of the light and walked back to my car.
Nobody noticed.
I set the purse on the passenger seat.
The little socks were still inside, right where I had tucked them in the clinic parking lot.
I left them there.
My phone buzzed.
Derek: Game's running late. Don't wait up.
Right behind it came a second message.
Derek: Forward the Cabo hotel confirmation to Taryn before you sleep, okay? I'll explain when I get home.
He hadn't told me I was staying home yet.
He had already told her she could use my reservation.
I opened the confirmation.
It had our names, the oceanfront suite and the anniversary dinner I had booked for Sunday night.
I closed it without forwarding anything.
Then I opened my chat with my older sister, Carrie.
Leah: You said your spare room was always open for me. Is the offer still good?
Her answer came in less than a minute.
Carrie: Always. Tell me when.
I looked back at the lit patio.
Derek was still sitting beside Taryn, his five hundred dollars on the table between their bottles.
He had given them a time and promised them my car.
In the locked drawer of my study at home were my fertility results, every page of them.
Derek had always said his own were fine, and he had never once shown me the paper.
I typed to my sister.
Leah: Saturday morning.
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