My Fiancé Kissed My Sister at Our Engagement Party and Told Everyone She Threw Herself at Him, So I Believed My Sister and Left With Her novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Eleven Seconds
Hannah walks in on her fiance kissing her sister in the coat room, hears him tell the church she threw herself at him, and walks out with Maddie while the cake stays.
My fiancé's mouth was on my sister's for ten seconds, and her hands were flat against his chest the whole time.
I knew because the clock over the coat-room door had a loud second hand.
Behind me, in the fellowship hall of Our Savior's Lutheran, sixty people were eating sheet cake.
The cake said HANNAH + BRANDON in blue gel.
I was holding the cake knife.
Brandon's mother had sent me to find him.
"The photographer wants the cutting, hon," Dee had said. "He's probably hiding with the coats."
Twenty minutes before that, Brandon had pulled me aside by the ham buns.
"Maddie's been funny with me since spring," he said, and rubbed my arm. "If she says anything strange tonight, come get me. Let me handle it."
I had said sure.
It sounded like a man looking after his future sister-in-law.
Now Maddie's eyes opened over his shoulder, and she saw me.
She didn't look guilty.
She looked like someone who had been standing in headlights for a very long time.
She shoved.
Her sleeve snagged a hanger, and the whole rack of church coats rattled.
Brandon stepped back and turned and saw me.
Behind me were two women from his mother's church circle and his cousin, who had his phone up to film the cake.
The phone swung toward us.
I watched Brandon decide.
It took about two seconds.
"Han," he said, loud, so the hall could hear. "Thank God. She threw herself at me."
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I've been trying to get her off me for a full minute."
"It was barely ten seconds," I said.
Nobody laughed.
"She's been drinking since the toast," he said. "Hon, I'm so sorry."
I looked at my sister.
She held a wine glass of ginger ale in one hand and her car keys in the other.
I knew it was ginger ale because I had poured it.
She was the driver tonight, and she had told me so twice.
Her hands were shaking so hard the ice rang against the glass.
"Oh, Maddie," Dee said, arriving at my elbow.
She said it the way you say it to a dog that got into the trash.
"That's the third scene this girl has made in front of this church since Easter."
Third.
I hadn't known there were two.
The hall had gone quiet behind us.
My mother came through the crowd in her good blue cardigan.
"Madeline Kruse," Linda said. "We talked about this."
I turned my head.
"Talked about what?"
Mom didn't look at me.
"Apologize to your sister."
Maddie finally spoke, and she said it only to me.
"Han. Please. Not here."
She didn't say she hadn't done it.
She didn't say anything else at all.
In my classroom, when a child says "It wasn't me," I watch the hands.
When a child says nothing, I watch the face.
Her face was the face of a girl who had said it before, to someone, and been told she was lying.
Dee leaned close to me, her voice sweet and low.
"Hannah, think before you do something silly. Fourteen thousand dollars of this wedding is already paid for."
"It's your mother's money, hon," she added. "Think about her."
Behind me the cousin lowered his phone and said, "Got all of it, Bran."
Brandon nodded to him, once, like a man approving a receipt.
Brandon took a step toward me with his hand out.
"Han. Come on. We'll laugh about this at the shower."
I looked at his hand.
I looked at the cake, and the sixty faces, and the cousin's phone still pointed at me.
Then I looked at my sister's flat, shaking palms.
So I believed her.
It was that fast.
I set the cake knife down in the nearest hand, which turned out to be Dee's.
I reached past Brandon to the rack and found Maddie's green wool coat by the sleeve.
I took it off the hook, took her hand, and told the room, "We're leaving, and the cake stays."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend