Three Days After I Took In My Pregnant Sister, I Caught Her Sleeping With My Husband novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: What the Neighbour Kept

Tucker shows her a driveway clip of Preston and Daphne kissing six weeks ago, long before Daphne needed a home, and Brianna sets the day she will end it.

Preston put the paper next to my coffee at seven on Friday morning.

He had his jacket on already, and he was smiling.

"The bank needs this today," he said. "It's just a form that lets me help with the loan for the nursery. Sign where the flag is."

I did not look at the flag.

"There's no nursery," I said.

"There will be. Daph is going to need a room for the baby, and this house has three."

He said it kindly, and he sounded sure.

Daphne stood in the kitchen doorway in a blue maternity top, holding a banana.

She was watching the paper and not me.

"I'll read it over lunch," I said.

"Cor, it's four lines."

"Then it won't take me long."

Preston's smile stayed where it was, but the muscle in his jaw jumped.

"Tonight, then," he said. "Before the bank closes tomorrow."

He kissed my forehead, and I let him.

"Two o'clock," he told Daphne from the hall. "Be ready."

The side door closed behind him, and a moment later I heard his car back out.

I waited until Daphne had gone upstairs, and then I put the paper in my purse.

I took the trash out to the curb, because I could not stand in that kitchen any longer.

My neighbor was walking up his own driveway in gray scrubs, with his badge swinging and a paper coffee cup in his hand.

Tucker Renner had lived next door for four years.

We had waved at each other maybe two hundred times, and talked a handful, mostly about the hedge.

He was an emergency room nurse and kept night hours.

He stopped when he saw me, and he did not say good morning.

"Brianna," he said. "Do you have a minute? I should have found you yesterday."

"For what?"

He looked at my house, then at me.

"It's better if I show you."

He held his phone out across the hedge.

The screen was a clip from his front door camera, which faced the shared line between our driveways.

The timestamp read six weeks ago, 11:52 at night.

A car pulled up at the end of our drive with its lights off.

My husband got out of it.

A taxi stopped behind him, and my sister stepped out in a short coat.

She walked straight up to him, and he took her face in both hands and kissed her.

It went on long enough that Tucker's camera went dark and woke itself up again.

Then Preston put his hand low on her back, and they went up our driveway together, laughing.

I played it twice.

My sister had told our mother her boyfriend only left two weeks ago, and that until then they had been happy.

In this clip, her boyfriend was still supposed to be home, and she was kissing my husband under our porch light.

"I pulled the old footage Wednesday night," Tucker said. "I saw his car out here at odd hours, and I wasn't sure what I was looking at. I looked it up and then I had to decide whether it was my business."

"You decided yesterday?"

"I decided this morning. I'm sorry. I should have said last night, but your car wasn't there."

I thought about that, standing in the cold in my slippers.

He was right that his timing was bad.

He was also the only person on this street who had stood in his own kitchen, watched my husband kiss my sister, and then walked out to tell me.

"Can you send me this?" I said.

"Already did. Check your messages."

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

"It's more than one night," he said. "I found three. I can send the others."

"Send them all."

I looked at my own front door.

Behind it, my sister was getting ready to be driven to a doctor by the man she had been kissing for six weeks.

"They have an appointment at two," I said.

"Today?"

"They'll both be gone from two until at least five. Preston never leaves a doctor's office without lunch."

Tucker waited.

I took out my phone and called a number I had found at midnight, a moving company that did same-day packing.

I spoke to the woman who answered, gave her my address, and said, "Two o'clock. Two workers, boxes and bags."

"How many rooms?"

"Two. The guest room and the main bedroom."

"What's the reason for the move, ma'am?"

"It isn't mine," I said.

I hung up and looked at Tucker.

His face was very still.

"Is it all right if I say something?" he said.

"Yes."

"You don't have to do the next part by yourself. I'm off until tonight. If the door code needs changing or you need a witness or you just need somebody to stand on the lawn, I'm here."

I had not been offered a hand in a very long time.

I almost cried over a man I barely knew, and I did not trust that, so I only nodded.

"Don't do it alone," he said again, quieter.

"I won't," I said, and I went inside to make my sister a breakfast she would never finish.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

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