Chapter 2

By the time I got home, the iced dessert had melted into nothing.

I had no appetite left, so I dropped it straight into the trash.

I opened Christian's social media and scrolled through mostly travel photos, nothing out of place.

Then something occurred to me, and I switched over to his secondary account and looked through it too.

Sure enough, I found a post of a turquoise watch.

It sat on his pale wrist, with a caption of just one word: Love it.

Among the people who liked it was Ebony.

And she was the first.

I stared at that like for a long time, and something cold settled in my chest.

Ebony never liked anyone's posts, least of all a man's.

Her page was like still water, nothing shared except work.

When I sent her a selfie, she wouldn't even send back an emoji, only telling me in person, "Looks good."

And yet she'd liked Christian's turquoise watch.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Ebony: "You home yet? I just finished up, want me to grab your favorite barbecue skewers?"

I forced down my irritation and replied, "No need."

Twenty minutes later, the lock clicked.

Ebony came in carrying a bag of skewers, still steaming.

"I knew you wouldn't have eaten."

She set the skewers on the coffee table and reached over to pat my shoulder. "What, you mad?"

I said nothing. She smiled and sighed.

"I knew my guy was getting all suspicious again."

She wrapped her arms around me from behind, her warm breath tickling my neck.

"It really was just business. Christian's company has a project, and they needed my side to work with them."

"He only picked me because of you, you know."

I turned to look at her. "Why would he pick me for my sake?"

Ebony paused.

"Aren't you two close?"

"Close." I repeated the word, and found it almost funny.

"Close enough that he can take my girlfriend out to dinner alone?"

"Haven't I already told you? It was a work thing."

A flicker of impatience crossed her eyes.

She leaned down, bringing her face close to mine. "Guy, what's gotten into you today?"

I looked up at her.

Clear eyes, long lashes, soft features.

Just as pretty as the year we met in college.

And also exactly, exactly like the photo on that marriage certificate in the shop's album.

My chest ached, and I hadn't figured out yet how to face tearing everything open.

"It's nothing." I stood up. "I'm going to shower."

The second the hot water came down, I closed my eyes.

My head was full of that turquoise watch.

The next day, I went to Christian's place.

In the past, whenever work wasn't busy for him, we'd make plans to catch a movie together on the weekend.

But when I thought about it, the last time we'd hung out was half a year ago.

Lately he was always saying he was busy.

And he'd gotten himself a mysterious girlfriend.

I'd hinted at it plenty of times. "When are you going to bring your girlfriend around so we can see her?"

He always said, "Plenty of chances later."

All that hiding and dodging probably came down to one truth.

That girlfriend was someone he couldn't bring out into the open in front of me.

When he saw it was me at the door, Christian looked a little surprised.

"Guy, what are you doing here?"

"What, you're such a workaholic now you don't even have time for your buddy?"

I smiled and slipped past him inside.

Christian blinked, then trailed after me, keeping up a scattered kind of small talk.

We'd known each other since college. Six years of it, close enough that we might as well have been brothers.

Which only made it harder to accept that he and Ebony were keeping something from me.

"It's the weekend, stop fussing over work. Let's go play some golf. Go clean yourself up."

Christian went off to shower, laughing, and I wandered around with nothing to do.

Until I reached his desk.

There I saw a beautiful turquoise watch.

The same turquoise watch the shop had shown me yesterday, the one you got free for buying three years of membership, identical down to the smallest detail.

I'd just picked it up.

Before I could get a good look, a hand suddenly snatched it away.

"Guy, what do you think you're doing?"

"Who said you could go touching my things?"