The Jealousy Game novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Strike Thirty-One
Dean blows his whistle at dinner because Lena took Brett's glass from Maddie, and Lena takes off the ring and walks out; in the car, a hotel confirmation for Brett and Maddie lands on her own card.
My friend blew his whistle in the middle of the restaurant, and half the dining room turned to look at me.
I was standing with Brett's water glass in my hand.
Maddie had just drunk from it.
Her own glass sat in front of her, full to the rim.
"That's Brett's," I said.
I said nothing else.
"Strike thirty-one," he called out. He coaches girls' soccer, and he calls everything out loud.
At the next table, a woman put down her fork.
Across from me, my other oldest friend took a little notebook from his jacket and wrote one line in black ink.
Then he took a green pen from his other pocket, wrote a second line, and covered it with his hand.
I had watched him do it thirty-one times and never asked why there were two colors.
"Babe." Brett leaned back in his chair, easy and kind. "Look at that. You saw it, you said it, it's out of your system. That's the game working."
Brett invented the game the spring we got engaged.
Each time I showed I was jealous, Maddie got a whole day with him.
Brett called it practice for trust.
The whistle was Dean's job and the notebook was Casper's, because I had known them both since I was six.
"Lena." Maddie slid her full glass across the tablecloth to me. "That was completely my fault. I wasn't thinking. Take mine, it's untouched."
Her voice was gentle and her eyes were wet.
She had been my best friend since the second grade.
Her overnight bag sat by the coat rack at the front of the restaurant, because her day always started at midnight.
I looked at it, and then I looked away, because Maddie was holding out a glass of water and looking at me with sorry eyes.
"Saturday is nothing," Brett said. "Farmers' market, a coffee, maybe the hardware store. You can text me every hour if you want."
"I don't want to text you every hour."
"That's the spirit." He grinned at Dean, and Dean grinned back.
Nobody asked what I wanted.
I put Brett's glass down on the cloth.
The ring on my left hand caught the candle.
It was a small diamond, and I had worn it for fourteen months.
My father's bakery had paid for half of it, since Brett's commissions were slow that spring.
I turned it with my thumb.
Dean's whistle was still hanging from his lips.
Casper had stopped writing.
So I took off the ring.
The table went quiet, and so did the table behind it.
I dropped the ring into Brett's water glass, where it sank with a small clink.
"Lena," Brett said. He was still smiling. "Don't be dramatic. It's one day."
"It's thirty-one."
"Come on. Sit down. You're making a scene."
"You made the scene," I said. "I just stopped playing in it."
Maddie reached for my sleeve. "Lena, honey, please. Let's go to the ladies' room and talk."
"No, thank you."
I picked up my coat.
Dean took the whistle out of his mouth. "Len, wait. It's just the rules."
"Whose rules?"
He opened his mouth and then shut it again.
Casper stood halfway up from his chair, with the notebook shut in his fist.
"Lena," he said.
I turned on him, and my voice came out harder than I meant it to.
"Sit down, Casper. Go write it down."
He sat.
His pen was still in his hand.
Behind me, I heard Brett laugh, short and bright, for the benefit of the room.
"She'll be back by morning," he told the nearest table. "She always is."
I walked past Maddie's bag and out through the front door into the cold.
The parking lot smelled like the lake.
I got into my car, and my hands wouldn't hold the key still, so I sat with them in my lap.
The windshield started to fog.
My phone buzzed against my thigh.
I almost ignored it.
It was an email from the Fennimore Inn.
Your reservation is confirmed: Suite 4, Saturday and Sunday, two guests.
Guest name: Brett Hallam.
It had been booked at 3:12 that afternoon, hours before he told me Saturday was only coffee.
Under it was the payment line.
Card ending 4417.
I knew that number without checking.
It was my card.
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