My Husband Cheated With My Best Friend, So I Took Them Both novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Rules on a Takeout Menu

Juliet writes her terms on a menu and questions them over pancakes; Declan's mother pulls into the drive.

I woke up in my own bed at six with the sun coming white off the ice on the lake.

For one second I thought I had dreamed it.

Then I smelled pancakes.

I went downstairs in my robe and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

Roz stood at my stove with the batter bowl against her hip, flipping pancakes with shaking hands.

Declan sat at the table in yesterday's shirt. He had spent the night on the couch, and I had heard him not sleeping through the floor.

"I know," Roz said without turning around. "I know it's insane. I didn't know what else to do with my hands."

"Sit down," I said.

"Jules, I just..."

"Roz. Sit."

She sat. She put the spatula down on a plate.

I took a takeout menu out of the kitchen drawer.

It was from the Thai place on Main Street, and I turned it over to the blank side.

I wrote three lines on it with the pen from the fruit bowl.

"Rules," I said. "One. I answer on the eighth day, and not before. Two. You answer every question I ask with the truth, even when it's ugly."

"And three?" said Declan.

"You two don't touch each other in this house unless I say so."

Roz's mouth opened, then shut.

"Agreed?" I said.

"Agreed," said Declan.

"Agreed," said Roz, very quietly.

I ate a pancake, because I was starving, and that made me angrier than anything yet.

"Question one," I said. "Where?"

Declan looked at the table. Roz looked at me.

"My apartment in Burlington," Roz said. "A hotel twice, when I couldn't stand the apartment. Never here."

"Never in this house."

"Never," said Declan. "I swear it on my life."

"Don't swear on your life. It's not worth much this morning."

He took it with a nod.

"Question two. Who knows?"

The kitchen got very quiet. Declan rubbed the back of his neck.

"My mother," he said.

I put my fork down.

"Philippa knows."

"She found out in March," Roz said. "She came to my apartment with a casserole. She saw his coat on my chair."

"She sent me flowers on my birthday in May."

"Jules."

"Yellow tulips. With a card that said, to the daughter I never had."

Roz flinched. I was glad, and then I was ashamed that I was glad.

"Question three," I said, and my voice broke on the number. "Which one of you started it?"

"I did," said Roz.

"We both did," Declan said, at the same time.

They looked at each other.

It lasted half a second.

But I saw it. They had agreed on an answer beforehand and now disagreed on who would give it.

"Try again," I said. "One at a time."

"I called him," said Roz. "The night of your launch. I couldn't sleep. I called, and he picked up."

"I picked up because I wanted to," said Declan. "Nobody made me."

"Why?"

Neither of them answered.

Declan opened his mouth.

Roz reached toward his hand on the table, and he closed his mouth again.

"Rule three," I said.

She pulled her fingers back and put her hand in her lap.

"There's something you're not saying," I said.

"There's a lot we're not saying," Roz said. "Not yet. I promise you will get it. But I can't say it with you looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're about to be the strongest person in the room."

I laughed. It came out ugly.

"Then I'll go first," I said. "Here's what I know. You cooked me breakfast. You made it the way I like it, with the crispy edge. And I'm sitting here wanting to eat every bite of it and throw the plate at your head."

"Throw the plate," Roz said. "I'd feel better."

"Don't. Don't be funny. Don't be my friend at my own table."

"Okay."

Declan slid the syrup toward me across the wood.

His hand stopped an inch from my wrist.

I could feel the heat of it. I could see the thin white scar on his thumb from the winter he rebuilt my porch, and I knew exactly what that thumb felt like on the inside of my knee.

I hated that I knew.

I picked up the syrup myself.

"I love you," Declan said quietly. "I never stopped."

"Then you should have been faster at telling me," I said.

Gravel crunched in the drive.

All three of us turned to the window.

A long grey sedan was rolling slowly up to the porch, with a woman in navy sitting very straight at the wheel.

Declan went pale.

"That's my mother," he said.

She got out, shut the car door with one gloved hand, and looked straight at the kitchen window until she found me.

I heard her heels on the porch steps.

Then she knocked three times and called out, bright and clear, "I've come to see my daughter-in-law."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

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