Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 169272 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169272 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Me: Yes, everything is going great. I’m still in Seattle with her. We’re getting ready for her move to LA.
Mom: HANNAH IS MOVING TO LA? Fabulous news! To live with you?
Me: No, not yet. Gotta go.
Mom: Are you two driving or flying from Seattle to LA?
Me: We’re driving her car while a moving company takes all her furniture and boxes. Gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you later.
Mom: You’re going to have to make at least a couple overnight stops during the drive. One of them should be in Fresno.
Shit. As a matter of fact, Fresno is perfectly situated for the last overnight stop of our trip.
Me: Maybe. No promises. I’ll talk to Hannah and let you know. Gotta go. Bye.
Mom replies, but I ignore her message this time, when I get one from Josh.
Josh: Leaving airport now. Kat is already fast asleep. Plan A or B, brother?
Me: Plan A. The target is at his house and wifey is still at the hairdresser. No Plan B required.
Josh: Well, how considerate of him to be home in time for my visit.
Seeing as how Kat is fast asleep, I ask if we can talk. I want to go over some of the details about what’s to come, and a voice conversation would be easier for that. Plus, I’d love to hear Josh’s voice when I tell him the brilliant thing I did to make sure our porn-addicted target has remained at his house after arriving home from his golf game.
Josh: Calling now.
My phone rings, and I connect the call. “Yo.”
Josh replies in a soft tone, obviously taking care not to awaken his future fiancée sleeping next to him in the car. “Nice of the bastard to be sitting at home, waiting for me.”
“He’s always home at this time of day after a round of golf at the country club,” I explain. “But just to make double-damn sure he was gonna be there for you today, he might have received a VIP-invitation to a live chat with his favorite porn star. Wink.”
Josh chuckles. “Fucking genius.”
“So I’ve been told. How close are you?”
“We’re in the limo now,” he says softly. “I’d say we’re about fifteen minutes out.”
“Cool.” I glance at my laptop, which is now showing me the target’s various devices in split-screen. “The dude’s not going anywhere. He’s watching a gangbang-bukkake-porno on his iPad while simultaneously live-chatting with a porn star on his laptop.”
“He’s double-fisting porn?” Josh whispers.
“I think he might have an addiction.”
“Ya think?”
“So, hey, I went through the dude’s computer like you asked me to. You were right—he’s totally cheating on his wife. Like, compulsively.”
“Yeah, I figured. A leopard doesn’t change his spots.”
“The guy’s a scumbag,” I say. “I literally hate him.”
“Welcome to the club.”
“I went through his wife’s phone and laptop just to get the lay of the land and she’s a total sweetheart—a genuinely good person. Clearly, she’s got no idea who she’s married to.”
“Not surprised at all.”
“So, are you gonna rat him out?”
“I wish I could so badly,” Josh says on an exhale. “But, no, I wasn’t planning to, for the sake of the wife.”
I exhale the same way Josh did a moment ago. I get Josh’s thinking on this, logically. It’s not our place to enlighten this woman about her shitbag of a husband. But it’s awfully hard for me to stand by and do nothing when I know for a fact an innocent woman is unknowingly married to a serial cheater. On the other hand, however, I was floored five years ago by the reaction of my pregnant childhood friend, Josie, when she found out about her serial cheater of a husband. Not only did she not leave him after finding out about his many infidelities from an “anonymous woman” he’d supposedly cheated with—cough, cough, aka me—but she also chewed out said anonymous woman for “butting her nose in where it didn’t belong out of pure jealousy” and for supposedly “maliciously photoshopping” the genuine screen shots that unequivocally proved her husband’s escapades.
“Yeah, I guess that’s the right call,” I say to Josh. “It’s not really our place to ruin her life. But it kills me. They’re trying to have a baby—doing hard-core fertility treatments. I hope one way or another she finds out she’s married to a cheating scumbag before she gets pregnant with the guy’s kid.”
I can’t help thinking my childhood friend’s reaction to the truth about her cheating husband might have been different if she hadn’t already had kids with the guy. If so, isn’t it my duty to save this poor woman from locking herself into a co-parenting relationship forever with this fuckstick? If she were drowning in a swimming pool, I’d jump in to save her without a thought. Isn’t this basically the same thing?
“So you think we should rat him out, after all?” Josh asks. He’s always been able to read me like a book.