He Played Husband for Her Dare, So I Left Carrying His Baby novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Door
Libby hears her husband agree to marry another woman for a dare and finds the calendar invite for tomorrow's ceremony.
The whole private room upstairs at our club cheered when my husband agreed to marry another woman.
I heard it through the door with my hand on the brass handle.
I was five weeks pregnant, and I had come to tell him.
The hostess downstairs had smiled when I gave my name.
"Ms. Kerr said to send you straight up, Mrs. Fairchild."
I thought that was kind of Delia.
She had brought soup to our house after the last failed cycle, and she remembered which tea I liked.
In my purse, inside a zipped sandwich bag, were three pregnancy tests.
Each one showed two pink lines.
Beside them was a pair of white baby socks, the smallest I had ever seen.
I had bought them at noon, after the blood test was booked for the morning.
Our fifth anniversary was Sunday.
I had planned to give Owen the socks at dinner and watch his face.
Inside the room, Delia's voice rose over the noise.
"Be my husband for a day, Owen. That's my dare."
Delia had started this April Fools' Dare Night fifteen years ago, when she and Owen were eighteen.
Every year someone got a dare, and every year someone filmed it, usually Delia.
Owen had never turned one down.
He had worn her name on his shirt for a whole day once.
He had let her switch the place cards at our first anniversary dinner, so she sat between us.
Last April, she had dared him to introduce her as the woman he should have married.
The room had laughed, and so had he.
Whenever I told him those jokes hurt, he kissed my forehead and said, "It's April Fools' Day, Libby. Don't make everything so serious."
I had spent five years trying to believe him.
"Chapel at Willow Creek," Delia went on. "Vows, rings, photos, dinner, the honeymoon suite at the Marlin Inn. Four o'clock tomorrow to four on Sunday."
She paused.
"And no calls to Libby the whole time."
The room erupted.
My fingers closed on the handle.
I waited for Owen to laugh and say no.
A chair scraped.
"What time?" my husband said, easy and curious, the way he asked about dinner reservations.
I stopped breathing.
Delia sounded delighted. "You're serious?"
"It's a dare," Owen said. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Then a quieter voice, one I knew from our own kitchen table.
"Because you have a wife," Hank said.
For one second I waited for Owen to remember me.
He laughed instead.
"Every time a cycle failed, Libby apologized to me. She thinks I'm a saint for staying."
His voice carried easily through the door.
"Trust me. She needs this marriage a lot more than I do."
I stared at the wood grain by my hand.
Four years of injections and procedures.
Every night I had cried against his chest after a negative result.
He always opened the clinic's letters first, at the kitchen table, and read me my numbers out loud.
Then he held me and said we were enough.
He had taken the worst four years of my life and turned them into proof that I would never leave.
"So that's a yes?" Delia said. "I've sent the booking link. Sign your name to confirm."
Someone said, "Phones up, we're filming this one."
A soft chime followed, then the tap of a thumb on a screen.
"Done," Owen said.
Glasses clinked inside.
Someone was already asking where to rent a better suit for tomorrow.
I let go of the handle.
I took my hand off the door and did not knock.
That was the first thing I chose.
The second was not to give him the socks.
I had pictured this night for four years.
I had pictured his face going soft, and him asking, in a small voice, if it was really true.
I would not hand him that moment now.
The elevator at the end of the hall opened as soon as I pressed the button.
My phone lit up before the doors closed.
Owen had written: Party's running late. Don't wait up.
A second message came under it: Love you.
He had agreed to marry her less than a minute ago, and he was already lying.
Through the gap, I saw into the room one last time.
Delia stood at his side with her hand on his sleeve while the others toasted them.
Owen was smiling.
I typed: Have fun. See you at home.
The doors shut between us.
I leaned against the mirrored wall, and my phone buzzed again.
It was a calendar notice from the account Owen and I shared, the one he never remembered I could see.
Saturday, 4:00 p.m. Willow Creek Chapel.
Groom: Owen Fairchild. Bride: Delia Kerr. Sixty guests.
Below that was a line from the bride: Livestream link goes to everyone on the groom's calendar. Wife is not to be told.
I was on his calendar.
The link would reach me whether anyone meant it to or not.
I read it twice in the elevator, and the lobby light came on.
I was not going to watch my own marriage end on a phone screen.
I was going to be in that chapel.
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