Page 52 (2/2)

Then I grabbed my clothes

There was no way Josh was cheating on me Simply no way There had to be a mistake somewhere

We’d been dating for four months I met him at the bank where ere both tellers He was dark-haired, clean-cut, good-looking, and when he asked me out I said yes Of course I did Josh was the Yeti of boyfriends: straight, single, sober, no baggage I enty-five, and I was supposed to have a boyfriend like that It was flattering that he’d pickedhione on the date

And it was going well We got along We liked the saular I’d met his family, and he’d met my mother, who had pulled me aside and told me in a low voice that she could see a future forin place everything I needed: a good job, a nice boyfriend, a regular life,

The call could be a fake Maybe this guy—I had no idea who he as just crazy Maybe he was a serial killer, trying to lure ht about the voice I’d heard on the phone, rough and a little dangerous, and I felt that chill again The stranger hadn’t sounded like a serial killer He’d sounded honest and very, very pissed off

Still, I toldgirlfriend had gone to a different address, not Josh’s Or so

Right?

I gripped the wheel and pulled up to Josh’s condo couy was cheating? What were they supposed to be? We didn’t have sex often, but then we never had That hat happened when you were in a regular relationship, I’d toldsex all the time, anyway You did it on a schedule, when you were free and you were both in thesex even less than usual? When was the last tiht back Saturday night? No, he’d gone out with his friends It must have been before that

How else was I supposed to knoas cheating? We didn’t fight He got a lot of attention from fe deal about that He didn’t act furtive, and I hadn’t caught hi the Big Conversation with hi In I had a schedule I needed a schedule Without a schedule, I wouldup I was determined not to mess up this time I was determined to make it work

Bring bandages, a towel, maybe a mop

I got that chill of preain

No Just no I was going to handle this And everything would be fine

It was raining, a waran winter, and even the rain elco

ot out of the car and walked up Josh’s driveway, letting et wet Josh lived in a co line like one of those cutout crafts you did in public school The coht with his nice bank salary In every way, my boyfriend was on the way up

There was a second car in the driveway, parked behind Josh’s treasured Mustang A pretty little car, as red as lipstick And beyond that, parked on the street, was another black car I didn’t recognize, inky in the darkness

There was no one around This was a neighborhood of nice young professionals, tidy and brand new, unlike the rest of Millwood, Michigan This wasn’t where the drunks and the teenagers and the pot dealers hung out This here people had jobs they had to get up for in the , and they all went to bed at ten

There were lights on in Josh’s place An upstairs light, and a light downstairs in the living room More ominously, the front door was open Just a little—it was a few inches ajar—but it was open And so A wo breaking

Oh, shit

I ran the rest of the way up the driveway A neighboring door opened, and a wo me a total bitch face that could turn you into stone from twenty feet away “I’m about to call the cops!” she shouted at h the connecting wall!”

“Don’t do it!” I shouted back I ran past her to Josh’s doorway

Inside, the living rooe Josh’s nice Ikea coffee table was overturned, and one of the brand-new blinds had been ripped fro the whole roole

Josh was lying on the floor, curled up in pain, his hands over his face Blood seeped through his fingers He earing nothing but a pair of tighty whities, his gy Stop, was a woeous and sexy, and she earing a t-shirt I recognized as Josh’s, and obviously nothing else I could literally see her bare ass

That answered the cheating question, then

So Josh’s nice living room, where atched TV andthe nice furniture, so his nice body, that I’d had sex with on a nice regular schedule for four niceat all except that woman’s bare ass, perfectly round and much smaller than mine, beneath the hem of my boyfriend’s T-shirt