Page 44 of Camera Stays On

“What did the message say?” he yelled.

Not prepared for that question, I made something up. “It said, ‘Is this your future sister-in-law?’”

He swore and dropped my phone as if it were poison. Leaping out of the car, he paced the parking lot, grabbing at his hair.

“It’s not her. It can’t be. They dubbed her voice in. The people in that video are almost completely in the shadows. There is no way Purdy, my Purdy, could do such a thing. She’s mine and only mine, Asher. I am the only one to ever touch her. From our first kiss to our last fuck. She’s—”

“That’s not all,” I cut off his deranged speech. He turned, his blazing eyes falling on me.

“What?”

“I gave her a ride home last night from the party.” I swallowed. This was it. I was about to betray her. There was no going back from this.

His eyes darkened, his chest heaved, but he said nothing. Sawyer waited for me to continue, so, digging into my pocket, I pulled out the metal wrapper and offered it to him.

Storming over, he snatched it from my palm and raised it to the sun.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked, despite it being painfully obvious. It was an open condom wrapper.

“I found it this morning in my truck, where she’d sat. It’s not mine.” Another lie.

Sawyer stumbled back, dropping the metal wrapper to the ground. He caught himself on the church steps, putting his head in his hands and closing his eyes.

“She cheated on me? My Purdy. How could she?” he cried out.

Pressing my lips together, I dug my hands into my pockets. They were shaking. Hell, my entire body was trembling with nerves. I stepped forward, and he looked up.

“What am I supposed to do, Ash?”

Call off the wedding. Let her go. Stop emotionally abusing her. Anything but fucking marry her.

“I don’t know, Sawyer.”

He clenched his fists, pushed off his knees, and stood.

“Who else has seen that video?” he demanded. “Who’s the other man?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

A large white van with flowers painted on the side pulled into the parking lot, interrupting us. The driver waved.

Sawyer groaned and threw his hands up.

“This is a great time to learn that my future wife is a fucking whore.”

“Hey—” I started, unsure what I was actually going to say. The florist got out of his car and came over to us. Sawyer, too angry to speak, turned and went to unlock the church. I signed for the flowers and then hurried after him.

“Sawyer? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not o-fucking-kay,” he snapped. Inside the church we’d grown up going to every Sunday, I followed him down into the basement, where we’d be getting ready. Sawyer paced, threw things, and punched a couch pillow. I stayed a few feet back, watching, observing, letting him get it out. After a few minutes, he turned to me—face beet red and hair wild—then stormed into the bathroom. When he returned, his face had gone back to its normal pale shade, and his expression was calm.

“Thank you, Ash.”

“Thank you?” I stared at him, confused.

He nodded.

“You are the only one I could trust to tell me the truth. Anyone else would have deleted the video and tossed the condom wrapper. Hell, anyone else might have just been the one in that video. But not you. You did me a favor.”