Imagine Your Best Friend Was His Alibi (He Cheats, I Get Revenge #1)

Chapter 1

one

He fails.

The lock catches. The door bumps the frame. His keys hit the tile.

I stay at the kitchen table with the electric bill open in front of me and watch him freeze.

Grant is still wearing the navy button-down he left in twelve hours ago. The sleeves are rolled to his elbows. His hair is damp at the temples. There is a red mark near his collar that could be nothing.

It could also be lipstick.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

His eyes flick to the clock above the stove, then to the papers around me.

“You’re still up.”

“The bill paying fairy called out sick.”

He smiles because he thinks I am joking. I am not.

Grant drops his keys into the bowl by the door. “You should’ve gone to bed.”

“You should’ve come home.”

His smile disappears.

Upstairs, our daughter turns over hard enough to make the ceiling creak. Our son’s white-noise machine hums through the baby monitor even though he is seven and too old for it.

I know where everything in this house is.

Except my husband.

Grant opens the refrigerator. Cold light pours over his face.

“Brooke called,” he says.

There it is.

Not an apology. An explanation.

“What happened?” I ask.

He reaches for water. “Evan showed up at her place.’

“Her ex-husband lives in Ohio.”

“He was in town, Tessa,” my husband says with just a sliver of annoyance.

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” Grant says as he twists the cap. “To see her? To start trouble? Does it matter?’

It matters enough for him to leave dinner with two plates in the sink, three unread texts from me, and our daughter waiting for help with a science project he promised to finish.

“What kind of trouble?” I ask.

“He was drunk. Yelling. She was scared.”

“So she called you.”

“She didn’t want to bother you.”

I look at him.

My best friend of seventeen years did not want to bother me, so she called my husband.

That is either thoughtful or stupid.

Brooke has never been thoughtful.

“Why didn’t she call the police?” I ask.

“She didn’t want it to become a thing. She asked me to be there. A guy figure, okay?”

“It kind of became a thing when you left the house, Grant.”

“You make it sound like I did something wrong.”

“I’m asking what happened.”

“And I’m telling you.”

His voice lifts a little.

Grant does not get louder when he is angry. He gets louder when he needs the truth to sound less reasonable than the lie.

“Did Evan leave?” I ask.

“Eventually.”

“And then?”

“And then what?”

“You stayed?”

“Brooke was upset.”

“You comforted her.”

He leans against the counter. “Jesus, Tessa.”

The red mark at his collar vanishes when he turns his head.

Not lipstick.

Just a shadow.

I hate the relief that moves through me.

Grant scrubs a hand over his face. “I knew you’d do this.”

“Do what?”

“Turn it into something.”

My husband comes home at 1:43 in the morning after spending hours alone with my best friend, and I’m the one turning it into something.

My phone lights beside the envelopes.

Brooke.

Of course.

Grant sees the name.

His face does not change.

That bothers me more than if it had.

It feels… rehearsed.

I’m sorry Grant got stuck here so late. Evan was out of control. Grant stayed until I calmed down. Nothing happened. Please don’t be mad at him.

I read it twice just to be sure.

Nothing happened.

Seems like an interesting choice of words.

I have not accused anyone of anything.

I have not texted Brooke.

I have not told Grant that I am mad.

Yet my best friend has delivered a defense before I ask for one.

“What did she say?” Grant asks.

I turn he phone face down.

“That she’s okay.”

“Good.” He pushes away from the counter. “I’m taking a shower.”

“At two in the morning?”

“Tessa, my adrenaline was hitting hard. I’m sweaty. Plus, I smell like smoke.”

There is no smoke on him.

There is something sweet, though. Faint. Floral.

Not Brooke’s perfume.

Brooke wears a loud amber scent that arrives before she does and stays after she leaves. This is lighter. Cleaner. Something expensive pretending not to be.

Grant heads upstairs.

“Did you drive Brooke home?” I ask.

He stops.

A tiny pause.

“She was already home.”

“Right.”

I wait until the bathroom pipes knock, then call Brooke.

“Tessa?”

Her voice is bright.

Too bright for a woman who spent the evening terrified of her drunk ex-boyfriend.

“Are you safe?” I ask.

“Yes. God, yes. I’m so sorry.”

“What happened?”

She begins too quickly.

Evan showed up after nine. He pounded on the door. He shouted about money. Grant arrived around ten. Evan left near midnight. Grant stayed because Brooke was shaking too hard to be alone.

A complete story.

Beginning, middle, end.

Neat enough to gift-wrap.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I ask.

“I know you had the kids.”

I always have the kids.

“So you called Grant.”

“He was already out.”

I look toward the ceiling.

I let a few seconds pass.

Brooke laughs in a thin and stupid sound.

“I mean, I texted him. He called me back. Same difference. It was… hectic…”

“Grant was with you the entire time?”

“Of course.”

I let the silence grow some more.

Brooke fills it because Brook has never met an empty space she could not ruin.

“You know I would never do that to you, right?”

There it is again.

The thing she thinks I am asking.

“Do what?” I ask.

Now she stays quiet.

The shower upstairs turns off.

“I’m exhausted,” Brooke whispers.

“So am I.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

Brooke hangs up.

I stare at her name, then open the family calendar.

Grant’s events for the day are listed in blue.

brOOKE EMERGENCY is not.

I add it my personal calendar that only exists on my phone.

Date. Time. Details.

I do not know whether my husband is actually sleeping with my best friend.

Not yet.

But I know for sure Brooke is lying… about something.

And Brooke has always been terrible at lying unless someone tells her exactly what to say.