Not His Wife novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Made Your Favorite

Reed makes pot roast and pushes the signature; Ivy lies for time, hears a number she never told him, and finds an email to Alyssa: seven days, then we're clear.

Reed made pot roast.

He only made pot roast when he wanted something.

I smelled it from the front porch and stood there with my key in my hand.

He had cooked it for me twice a month for four years, and I had counted every pot as love.

Then I opened the door.

The framed certificate hung in the front hall between my mother's picture and the coat hooks, the way it always had.

I looked at it for the first time in a year.

The county seal was printed flat.

It had no raised edge at all, and I did not know what a real one felt like.

"Babe?" Reed called from the kitchen. "You're late."

"Traffic."

He came out wiping his hands on a dish towel, sandy hair still damp from a shower, grinning the grin that had once made me forgive him for a dented bumper.

He kissed my cheek.

I let him.

"Smells great," I said.

"It's your favorite."

It was not my favorite.

It was Alyssa's favorite, and I had always eaten it to be polite.

We sat at my mother's table.

He had set out the good napkins, which was how I knew exactly how much he needed.

"So," he said, with his mouth full. "How was the bank?"

"Long."

"Did you sign?"

"They had to send it up," I said. "Some kind of review. The officer said she'd call me by Friday."

His fork stopped.

It stopped for about one second, and then it went on.

"Review? For a cosign?"

"That's what she said."

"Well, it's a formality." He laughed, a little loud. "Four-ten on the house, Ivy. That's practically a gift to them."

"Four hundred ten thousand," I said slowly.

"What?"

"You said four-ten. I never told you what the house was worth."

He did not blink.

"Zillow," he said. "I looked it up in August when I was thinking about the porch. You don't even want to know what Zillow says about your street."

"I want to know."

"It's a lot of money, babe. Eat your carrots."

He reached over and squeezed my hand.

His palm was warm and dry, and he had been squeezing my hand that same way for four years.

His phone buzzed on the table, and the screen said MOM.

He put it on speaker the way he always did, because he liked me to hear that his mother loved him.

"Is the sweet one signing?" Joyce said. "I told Reed to make her sign tonight. You can't leave these things to the weekend."

"Ma," Reed said.

"I'm only saying. She's got that house, and a person ought to use what they've got."

"Ma, she's right here."

"Oh," Joyce said, and her voice went honey. "Hello, sweetheart. I was just talking about the roast."

"It's good," I said.

"Reed's a lucky boy," she said, and hung up.

I sat there with my knife in my hand and thought, she calls me the sweet one.

She has never once used my name.

After dinner I said I wanted air.

I took the trash out, which gave me an excuse for the porch light and the walk to the curb.

I had texted Anson my address from the car, one line, no hello.

A dark sedan sat at the end of the block with its lights off and a man in the driver's seat.

I walked straight to it in my house shoes and opened the passenger door and got in.

The rain had started again.

It ran down my collar and I did not care.

"You said no touching," Anson said.

"I haven't touched you."

"You're about to."

"I'm shaking," I said. "If I don't hold on to something I'll go back in there and put the roast on his head."

I took his coat sleeve in my fist.

It was wet wool, and warm underneath, and I held it hard.

He did not move his arm.

He looked straight ahead through the windshield, at the rain on the glass, and said, very quietly, "Rule three, then. Sleeves don't count."

"Rule three?"

"I'm making them up as I go. No one cries in my car is rule four."

"I'm not crying."

"Good."

"And rule five is you don't get to have rules," I said.

He made a short sound that might have been a laugh.

We sat that way for a minute with my fist in his sleeve, and neither of us pulled away.

"He said four-ten," I said. "I never told him that number."

"Then somebody did."

"He says Zillow."

"Does the house have a listing on Zillow?"

"No."

He nodded slowly.

I let go of his sleeve.

My hand felt cold in the air.

"Go back in," he said. "Be boring. Be tired. I'll be here."

I went back in.

Reed was upstairs in the shower.

His laptop sat open on the kitchen table next to the good napkins.

I had never once looked at it.

The email on the screen was from Alyssa.

I read the subject line, and then the one line under it, and then I stopped breathing.

It said, "Seven days. Then we're clear."

The water upstairs had stopped.

"Looking for something, babe?" Reed said behind me.

← 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