Submitting to My Ex's Dad novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Ring in the Whiskey
Hallie finds her best friend in her fiance's bed the night before the wedding, drops her ring in the best man's glass, and kisses a stranger in a hotel elevator.
The night before my wedding, I let myself into my fiance's condo with the key he had given me.
It was ten o'clock on Friday.
I was carrying his grandfather's cufflinks in a velvet pouch.
I had picked them up from the jeweler on the way over, because Preston had forgotten again.
Three of his groomsmen sat at the poker table in the living room, with beer bottles and a tray of cold wings.
They saw me and went quiet in a way that made the back of my neck prickle.
"Hallie," said the best man, standing too fast. "Hey. He's, uh, asleep."
"At ten o'clock?"
"Big day tomorrow."
I looked at the hallway.
A pair of silver heels lay on their sides outside the bedroom door.
I knew those shoes.
I had paid for half of them, because Kendall said she was short that month.
Kendall was my maid of honor.
She had been my best friend for eight years.
She had cried with me over the wedding invitations.
I put the velvet pouch down on the arm of the couch.
"Hallie, wait," the best man said.
I walked down the hallway and opened the bedroom door.
The lamp was on.
Preston was lying on his back with his arm under Kendall's head.
Her bare shoulder rested against his chest, and her hair was spread across the pillow I had picked out for him.
Neither of them heard me at first.
She was laughing at something he had said.
Then Preston looked up.
"Babe," he said.
Kendall's face went white, and then very still.
"Babe, it's not what it looks like."
"It looks like my best friend in your bed."
"It's a one-time thing. It's the stress. Everybody gets cold feet."
"Cold feet," I said.
"Hallie," Kendall said, and she reached for the sheet. "Please. Let me explain."
"You don't have to."
I took a breath, and my voice came out calm and flat, and that frightened me more than anything.
"You cried over my invitations."
She had no answer.
I turned around and walked back to the living room.
Three men stared at me with their cards in their hands.
I pulled the engagement ring off my finger.
It had stuck a little at the knuckle, the way it always did in the heat.
I held it up so each of them could see it.
Then I dropped it into the best man's whiskey glass.
It hit the bottom with a small clink.
"Tell your guests," I said.
"Hallie, come on," the best man said.
"You tell them. Tell them the groom's busy."
Behind me, Preston came out of the bedroom in his boxers.
"Hallie, don't do this. Don't be dramatic. It's one night before the wedding. Think about my family."
I looked at him.
I thought, he is going to say my name one more time and I am going to hit him.
Then I picked up my purse and walked out.
The cufflinks stayed on the couch where I had left them.
The elevator doors closed on Preston's voice, saying that my mother would be so embarrassed.
I did not cry in the lobby.
I took a cab to the Marlowe Hotel on Lake Shore Drive, where the wedding was supposed to happen at two the next afternoon.
The bridal suite was booked for the night, and I had the key card in my wallet.
I did not go up to it.
I went to the bar on the mezzanine, and I sat on the last stool, and I ordered a whiskey I did not want.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
It was Preston.
"Where are you? Stop being dramatic. We'll talk in the morning. Kendall's sorry."
I looked at that text for a long moment.
Then I blocked his number.
I blocked Kendall's.
I drank half the whiskey, and I stood up to find the ladies' room, and the floor tipped sideways.
A hand closed around my elbow.
It was a big hand, warm and sure, with a pale scar across one knuckle.
"Easy," a man said.
He was sitting two stools down.
I had not noticed him, which was strange, because I noticed him now.
He looked twenty years older than me, and nothing like anyone I knew.
His dark hair was silver at the temples, and a thin scar cut through his left eyebrow.
His charcoal suit jacket was open, his tie loose.
His eyes were dark brown and they were paying attention to me, and only me.
"You're not drunk," he said. "You're angry."
"How can you tell?"
"Because you haven't looked at your phone in three minutes, and you're holding your glass like you'd like to throw it."
I almost laughed.
"I was supposed to get married tomorrow," I said.
His grip on my elbow did not change.
"Was?"
"I just dropped the ring in another man's drink."
"Good," he said.
He said it so simply that something loosened in my chest.
"I want to do something stupid," I told him.
I was surprised at how steady my voice was.
"Tonight. With somebody who doesn't know me. Somebody I'll never see again."
"Then you've picked the right bar."
"Are you going to tell me to go home?"
He looked at my mouth, and then at my eyes, and he took his time with both.
"No," he said. "I'm going to tell you my room number."
He stood.
He was much taller than I had thought.
He didn't ask my name, and I didn't ask his.
In the elevator the doors slid shut, and he pressed fourteen, and we stood side by side, not touching, watching the numbers climb.
I counted three floors.
Then I turned, took hold of his open collar with both hands, and kissed him.
He did not move for one second.
Then his hand came up and wrapped around the back of my neck.
He kissed me back so hard that my shoulders met the elevator wall.
When he broke away, his breathing had changed.
"Last chance," he said, low and rough. "Tell me to stop."
"Make me," I said.
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