She Borrowed My Boyfriend Again

For the seventh time, my best friend borrowed my boyfriend. The reason: he had to go home with her and stage a fake wedding.

The day before Thanksgiving, Tucker and I had just agreed to go home and set our wedding date, and then she showed up at our door with wedding invitations already printed.

Tucker complained out loud: enough already, is this ever going to end. Then he indulged her anyway and went out on the balcony with her to get their story straight.

Through the glass door, I watched him brush a loose strand of hair off her face.

I took his present out of my suitcase and texted my mom back: [I'm coming home alone for Thanksgiving this year.] Chapter 1 A while later, the balcony door slid open.

Tucker didn't notice in the slightest how unnaturally quiet I'd gone.

He walked straight to the open suitcase, and his eyes landed on the two boxes of dryaged steaks and the two bottles of allocated bourbon.

I'd called in every favor I had to get them, a month in advance, as my parents' Thanksgiving gift. "Maddie, how about I take these two things for now?" His tone was gentle, like he was talking it over with me.

I looked up at him. Tucker made an apologetic face and gave a helpless little laugh. "Those relatives back in Kenny's hometown are snobs. She needs something to show off with.

Let me take the good stuff for now, just to get through it." "And my parents?" My voice was very soft.

He pointed at a grocery bag by the shoe rack, his tone casual. "Those two mincemeat pies — take them home.

Isn't mincemeat your dad's favorite?" "Your mom and dad have always treated me like their own son. We're family.

They're not going to care about empty formalities." The words were barely out when Kendra leaned into my shoulder, all smiles. "Maddie, I knew you were the best." "When I get back, I'm taking you out for a huge dinner to make it up to you!" Then she hooked her arm through Tucker's and pulled him toward the door, too impatient to wait. "Let's go, Langford, go get the car.

We'll miss dinner if we're late!" "All you ever do is rush me. It's exhausting." Tucker went along with it, resigned, and carried the gifts out.

At the door he still remembered to turn around and tell me: "Maddie, take it easy on the way. Text me when you get there." The door banged shut, and the apartment went dead quiet.

I walked over to the shoe rack in the entryway. Those two pies had a nearexpiration markdown sticker on them, plain as day. Manager's Special — Buy One, Get One Free.

I threw them in the trash can in the corner, along with the last thing I still expected from him. I sat back down on the couch and picked up the iPad we shared.

I meant to unlink the shared album, but instead I pulled up his synced iCloud data. His shopping cart was packed end to end with a list of things for this fake wedding.

A $20,000 couture gown. A $15,000 diamond ring. He'd even put down the deposit on a chartered boat for a honeymoon in Maui. He'd spent six months picking it all out.

He'd even made a note about Kendra's shellfish allergy and the EpiPen to bring for her.

Chapter 2 I thought back to the month before, when I was getting pressure to get married and had tested the water by asking if he wanted to go look at rings.

He'd said: "Maddie, a diamond ring is just a rock." "We've been together seven years. Do we still need material things to prove what we have?

Plain and steady is what's real." So it wasn't that he didn't want to spend money on romance. He just didn't think I was worth it. I opened Notes.

Pinned to the top were Kenny's period schedule and careandfeeding guide. On rainy days, buy her the chestnut cream cake from that place on the South Side to cheer her up.

Spelled right out. But a few days earlier I'd worked three straight days of overtime, and my stomach was hurting, and he'd tossed me a mango crêpe cake.

I'm severely allergic to mango. When I reminded him, he didn't get angry.

He was just patient with me, the way you'd be with a child making a fuss over nothing. "I stood in line half an hour at that place. I just didn't remember for a second.

Pick the mango out and eat the rest. I'll pay attention next time." I scrolled down.

At the bottom of Notes was something he'd written at three in the morning: "Maddie is so lowmaintenance. Life with her is steady, but it's as bland as a cup of plain hot water.

Only when I'm out being crazy with Kenny do I feel like my heart is still beating." Lowmaintenance. Plain hot water.

I stared at those lines, and my throat felt like it had swallowed a fistful of broken glass that ground everything inside me to pieces. Seven years.

I'd stuck it out with him, from a little rental in a cheap part of town all the way to a place downtown, going without, taking on every bit of the housework, holding down the home front for him.

All my being lowmaintenance, all my giving — it had all gone to making things work out for another woman. Then my phone screen lit up out of nowhere.

The typing bubble at the top blinked for a long time before my mom sent a voice message. "Okay." "Coming home by yourself is fine too. Take it easy on the way.

Your dad and I are here waiting for you." The tears broke loose all at once. I took a deep breath, wiped my face, and switched over to the booking app.

I bought the earliest flight to Pittsburgh. Then I got up, went into the bedroom, opened the closet, and packed only what was mine.

Tucker, since plain and steady feels so suffocating to you. Then here. I'm setting you free. Once my own things were packed, I went and got some trash bags.

The matching mugs we'd bought together, the Polaroids on the wall that traced seven years of us — I dropped them in one by one.

Then I listed the whole apartment's worth of stuff on Marketplace, $50 for all of it, buyer hauls it away, and arranged for someone to come take everything at first light.

I couldn't sleep at all, and in the small hours the group chat with our mutual friends blew up. Someone had posted a clear piece of drone footage.

Fireworks lit the night sky up like daylight. Hundreds of drones shifted formation over the little town Kendra came from and finally locked into two enormous letters: Y L.

Youngblood and Langford. A few friends in the chat who had no idea started tagging me. [Langford really went all out to make Kendra's act look real!

A drone setup like that has to be five figures, minimum.] [Maddie, if your Langford makes even a fake wedding this romantic, when you two actually get married he'll pull the stars down out of the sky for you.] The stars?

I sat on the floor among the trash bags, watching the glittering show on the screen, my eyes going out of focus. I thought about our fifth anniversary.

There was a free drone light show on the lakefront that night. I'd begged him for a whole week to come with me after work, just to be in the crowd for it.

That night I stood in the wind for two hours, hands and feet frozen, and he never showed. When I finally got through to him, his voice was tired.

Chapter 3 "Maddie, a report came up out of nowhere and I have to get it done. I really can't get away." "Why put yourself through that in this cold? Be good, head home early.

I'll order you a latte later to make up for it." The words were barely out when Kendra's voice came through from his end, pushing him. "Langford, switch back to the game!

This one's my promo match, I drop a rank if I lose. I can't do it without you!" The lie came apart right there.

The line went quiet for a second, and then came a very small sigh from him. "She's having a bad day. I'm just running one promo game for her.

My baby's always so lowmaintenance, don't get worked up. Go get a car and head home." That night I walked back to the apartment by myself in the cold wind.

My phone buzzed and pulled me out of it. A video call from Tucker. I hit accept.

On the screen, Tucker was in the suit, a groom's boutonniere still pinned to his chest. "Maddie, did you see the video in the chat?" He smiled into the camera, and the promise came out of him easily. "I was just thinking, this town is way too out of the way.

When we get married next year, I'll book out the whole stretch of the Riverwalk downtown and give you something twice this size." The words were barely out when Kendra pushed into the frame in her wedding dress. "Maddie!

Your Langford is completely hopeless at taking care of anybody." She pouted at the screen, complaining. "He can't even see how long this train is.

Doesn't occur to him to come hold it up." Tucker set the phone down on a table, the camera tilted crookedly toward the two of them.

He walked over, and even while his mouth said she was a nuisance, his arm went around her without a thought. "Whose fault is it that you're short?" Kendra huffed and said, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world: "I'm breaking you in early, for Maddie's sake!

So when the two of you get married you're not completely clueless." "So I'm supposed to thank you?" Tucker laughed in spite of himself.

Kendra pretended to be angry and lifted a foot to kick at his shin, playing it up. "What kind of attitude is that!" She swung too hard, stepped on her own train, yelped, and pitched forward.

Tucker caught her around the waist, fast. Looking at her, still rattled and already trying to act tough, he gave a helpless sigh. "Enough.

As clumsy as you are, you'll have that dress in shreds before we get to the hotel." The next second he just bent down and hauled Kendra, wedding dress and all, over his shoulder. "Ah!

Tucker, put me down!" Kendra shrieked and squirmed on his back, legs swinging. "Keep moving and I'll drop you." Tucker smacked her backside, the threat carrying a laugh in it.

They horsed around in front of the camera like nobody else was there. I watched the screen quietly and didn't say a word to stop them. I just calmly pressed end.

His promises went to me. His favoritism, his indulgence, the way his body moved before he could think — all of that went to somebody else.

At first light, the buyer coming for our things knocked right on time. I sold every piece of that junk, seven years of my life in it, for $50.

In the emptied living room, even the echo had gone cold.

I dropped the spare key on the empty rack by the door, texted the landlord that I was moving out, and didn't even ask for the deposit back.

I took one last look at the home I'd spent seven years building, and walked out. I wheeled my suitcase out and took an Uber to O'Hare.

The PA was cycling through security and boarding announcements. I sat in the gate area and opened my banking app.

Chapter 4 I found the joint account with Tucker's name and mine on it. The one he called our wedding fund.

Looking at the balance sitting there, neat and even, $60,500, I didn't hesitate for a second. I tapped transfer all. A dozen seconds later the money was safe in my own account.

Then, clean and quick, I reported that debit card lost and had it canceled. Less than five minutes after I'd finished, Tucker called.

The moment it connected, his voice came through, anxious. "Maddie, why is our joint card showing insufficient funds?

Is their system down?" I watched the red flight numbers rolling across the big board. "Nothing's down. I moved all of it out just now." The other end went quiet for a second.

Then came a soft sigh from Tucker. "Maddie, is this because I didn't go home with you today?

Are you throwing a fit?" "I know you got the short end of it, but Kenny's grandmother is still in that hospital room waiting to see the pictures and the video of our wedding." "Be lowmaintenance about this.

Put the money back first, and when we're home your man will make it up to you, all right?" My knuckles went a little white around the phone.

For three years he'd burned through his paycheck every single month, all of it explained away as networking he had to keep up.

The $60,000 in that wedding fund was a down payment on a house, saved a piece at a time through more late nights than I could count, until I'd given myself a stomach condition.

And now he was taking money I'd bled for, without a shred of doubt, to play big man at somebody else's fake wedding.

Then Kendra's voice came through from his end, thick with tears, all selfblame. "Langford, what's wrong? Is Maddie mad?

I told you not to spend that much on the drones… Go explain it to her, just say I'm borrowing the money from you two." "Maddie, don't be angry at Langford, this was all for my grandmother…" The next second I heard Tucker with his hand over the mic, soothing her