Better Than My Ex novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Safe

Bryson's calendar said he was flying a Denver turn on Monday and wouldn't be home until six.

I still had a key to his condo in the Marina.

He had told me to leave it on the counter, and I hadn't been inside to do it.

Levi parked across the street and turned off the engine.

"I'll wait here."

"It's ten minutes."

"Then I'll wait ten minutes."

I took the stairs instead of the elevator, because I didn't want the doorman to see me and have to explain.

The condo smelled of his cologne and the lemon cleaner his cleaner used.

Nothing had changed.

The couch was still gray, and the photo of him in his captain's uniform still stood on the shelf, grinning.

I walked past it to the bedroom closet.

The safe sat behind a row of pressed shirts, black and square and ordinary.

I had never once seen it open.

I put in the code he'd given me on the beach.

1104.

The little light turned green, and the door swung open with a soft click.

My passport lay on top.

I picked it up first, and my hands didn't shake.

My birth certificate was under it, and my Social Security card, in the same envelope Bryson had asked me to hand over last April.

"I'll keep them somewhere safe for you," he'd said, smiling. "You're always losing things."

I put all three in my bag.

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