Page 2 of Cord

I make a noise of disgust. My dad had a brain tumor, but the surgery was successful and his prognosis is excellent. We were lucky that he’d been in a car accident and required a head scan. It caught the tumor before it became symptomatic. Most people just think he took a few weeks off and came back to the company. They have no idea that he went through major surgery and private man that he is, that’s the way my dad wants to keep it.

“Then you can divorce her and take half of her inheritance,” Pouty Blonde says.

“And we can finally go to Paris, just like I promised,” Stuart answers, leaning down to kiss her because why the fuck wouldn’t he be kissing another woman in my bed?

“There you are. You lost us,” Ronnie says then takes one look at my face. “Boys, you see the paint chips down there? Go pick a few. We need to repaint the treehouse.”

I watch them run halfway down the aisle, close enough to be visible but not able to overhear us discussing this.

“Sweetie, what’s going on?” Ronnie’s voice has the concerned note that it did the day I told her about my dad’s brain tumor. She was the first person I told. Not Stuart, Ronnie. “Is it--?”

“I don’t want to talk here,” I tell her. I need to be in private. I need time to think this through and figure out...what, I don’t know. All I know is that Ronnie will help me. We’ve been through so much together, and she’s the one person I can count on when my world is falling apart.

“I just kept feeling like something was wrong,” I admit in a small voice, hours later when I’m sitting at Ronnie’s kitchen table. The boys are outside playing in the sprinkler while the two of us talk.

Molly and Milo are curled up asleep on her lumpy couch. She stopped by my townhouse and picked up the dogs, so I didn’t have to go in there. I couldn’t swear I wouldn’t set my sheets on fire. Or Stuart, though he wasn’t around.

Ronnie nods and sips her tea. She’s sat with me for hours, digesting this news and listening to me process everything out loud.

“I don’t know what to do,” I tell her though I’ve thought about confronting him, keying his car, and destroying his video game collection. After all, he slept with another woman. In my bed. Three days before our wedding.

“Well, you don’t have to make any decisions today,” Ronnie reminds me gently, parroting my words from the night she discovered her ex-husband was cheating. I was there for her then. I never expected that one day I’d be on the opposite side of this conversation.

“You know the worst part? I knew something was wrong, and I ignored it. I ignored it because I…want to be married. I’m almost thirty. I want the husband, the kids, and the dogs, even the van with the crushed cereal bits.”

She reaches for my hand across the table and gives it a gentle squeeze. “With the right partner, marriage can be an amazing adventure that’s fulfilling for both of you. With the wrong partner, it’s hell on earth.”

I sniff, tears threatening again. “I know. I saw your marriage. It’s a good thing I figured it out now, but my dad is going to be crushed. He actually likes Stuart. If he realizes that the sleazeball has just been counting down the days until he dies...ugh, why is he such an awful person? Why can’t he just love me?”

“Because his initials are literally STD.”

I chuckle then. It’s a weak sound, but I’m not surprised that the first person that could make me laugh in the middle of this is my best friend. “He thinks I can’t do better than him. He told me that once.”

“So, prove the asshole wrong.” She shrugs.

“I should! I should have someone interrupt the wedding. Someone hot. Revenge for jilted women everywhere.”

“See, that’s the spirit! All you need is a hot guy.”

“And I know just where to get one,” I tell her, the plan already forming in my head. This may not be the wedding of my dreams, but it’s still going to be memorable for all of our guests.

Chapter 2

Mira

The next three days pass in a flurry of activity. The entire time, I feel like I’m underwater. I can’t breathe, and my lungs are burning, but I keep smiling. Keep going through the motions.

The blood test from the doctor’s office comes back, and I breathe a soft sigh of relief when I see the clear results. Ronnie gently urged me to get checked out because cheaters don’t care if they fuck up your health for life as long as they get their pleasure.

Despite my anger bubbling constantly under the surface, Stuart never notices. In fact, we barely spend any time together at all. It’s only Ronnie that notices, and each time I think I’m going crazy, she just puts a hand on my shoulder. Her presence is quiet and reassuring, the rock I can lean on right now.

“Are you nervous?” She asks quietly. It’s just the two of us and the hair stylist who has been sworn to secrecy.

“I have the perfect plan,” I reassure her. Thanks to a recent article in the news, I remembered there was a fundraiser only a few hours from Asheville. Women bid on hot cowboys online and the highest bidder “wins” a cowboy for seventy-two hours.

I didn’t hesitate to put down an obscene amount of money on a good-looking cowboy with a deep brown gaze who has the perfect scowl. He looks like the exact opposite of Stuart. He isn’t polished or soft. He’s hard angles with a bushy beard and a look in his eyes that’s daring the world to cross him. This is exactly the kind of man I need to show up and make a scene.

The hair stylist finishes Ronnie’s hair, spraying it down with enough hair spray that it’s likely to hold during an earthquake, hurricane, and flash flood. “Because if you were, there’s still time to bolt.”