The Invitation by Vi Keeland

CHAPTER 29

Stella

Fifteen months ago

“You smell like perfume, Aiden.” I took a step away from him after our hug.

He sighed. “Not this again. You have samples all over both of our apartments, of course some of it gets caught in my clothes.”

He turned and walked to his bedroom. I followed.

“You smell like jasmine. I don’t have that here or at your place.”

“Well, then it’s probably a combination of the shit you have laying around. You, of all people, know that when you combine a lot of smells, you make a new one. Whatever my wool coat picked up must be doing the combining.”

“Where were you tonight?”

“Grading midterms in my office. Would you like me to get a note from the security guard I pass on my way out from now on? The better question is, where were you? You still have your shoes on, and your cheeks are red from the cold. So I take it you worked late yourself.”

“I was at the lab working on the algorithm.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “The algorithm…right. I thought we’d put that to bed. We’re buying a house with that money.”

“Just because I agreed we could use our savings to buy a house doesn’t mean I need to stop working on my product.”

“No, but how do I know you were really there?”

“You don’t. But I’m not the one who smells like perfume and has hotel charges on my credit card.”

“I’m not doing this shit again, Stella.” Aiden put his hands on his hips. “The hotel was a reservation for my parents who were coming to town. I made it a long time ago and forgot to cancel it after they canceled their trip to New York. It had completely slipped my mind when you asked me. A week later I remembered, so I paid the bill. I didn’t think I needed to report back to you.”

The story he’d told me did make sense, only he’d never mentioned that his parents were coming to town, and when they had in the past, they’d always stayed at a hotel near his apartment—not on the other side of town.

Lately it was always the same thing. He had an explanation for everything—the hotel charge, smelling like perfume, when my friend from work saw him at a restaurant with a brunette woman looking pretty cozy, a suspicious text. It wasn’t one thing, but a bunch of small things that added up.

“Look.” Aiden walked over and put his hands on my shoulders. “Those dumb diaries are planting shit in your head.”

I wanted so badly to believe him. But I couldn’t let go of all the similarities between the way Alexandria was treating her husband and things between Aiden and me lately. Alexandria would come home and go right to the shower to wash off her lover’s smell—just like Aiden had started doing the last few months if I was at his apartment when he got home. Alexandria was super cautious with her phone. Aiden even took his into the bathroom when he showered now—except for that one time he was in the shower when I arrived at his place. I’d found his cell charging on his nightstand and tried to sneak a peek at his text messages while the water was still running, only to find he’d changed his password from the one he’d been using forever.

I looked into Aiden’s eyes. “Do you promise me? Promise me there is nothing going on with anyone else. I just can’t shake the feeling, Aiden.”

He leaned closer and spoke directly into my eyes. “You need to trust me.”

I nodded, though I didn’t feel settled.

That night, we went to sleep like we had most nights lately—with a quick peck on the lips and no sex. That was yet another thing that had changed over the last six months and only added to my suspicions.

***

The following week everything had mostly returned to normal—until Fisher called one morning while I was making toast.

“Hey. You told me Aiden was going out of town tonight, right? That’s one of the reasons you moved our monthly movie night from Sunday to Friday.”

“Yeah. He’s going to a conference upstate on incorporating new technology into college lectures. Why?”

“I ran into that weird guy Simon he works with—the one who parts his hair down the middle and brushes it straight down on the sides. I got stuck talking to him at your Christmas party a few years back, and he spent half an hour explaining how the helium balloons are bad for our marine environment.”

“I remember Simon. What about him?”

“Well, we go to the same gym. I see him every once in a while and try to avoid him. But this morning, the only treadmill open was next to him. So I had to run beside the guy. He noticed my water bottle and started lecturing me about the effects of plastic on Mother Earth. I tried to change the subject, so I asked him if he was going to the conference.”

“Okay…”

“He said it was last weekend.”

“What?” I stopped with the butter knife mid-spread, my toast forgotten. “Maybe they have it over a few weekends?”

“That’s what I figured. I know you’ve been having a hard time with trusting Aiden lately, so I wasn’t going to mention it to you, but it was bugging me. So I Googled the conference. It was last weekend—only last weekend, Stell.”

After I didn’t say anything for a long time, I heard the worry in Fisher’s voice.

“Are you okay?”

Oddly, I felt sort of numb, not frantic and freaked out like I’d been when I first started to suspect something. Maybe deep down I’d known the truth all along. But I was positive Aiden was never going to admit anything.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Do you think you can borrow your friend’s car again?”

“Probably. Why?”

“Could you do that and be here at four?”

“I thought movie night was going to start at six?”

“It was. But change of plans. Aiden’s leaving at four, and I want to follow him.”

***

“There he is.” I pointed to Aiden as he walked out the front entrance of his building, wheeling his luggage. Fisher and I were parked four cars away, waiting.

I slumped down in my seat even though Aiden had turned left, the opposite direction of where we were. He kept his Prius in a parking garage about two blocks away.

“Should I follow him?” Fisher said.

I shook my head. “It’s going to take him a few minutes to get down to the garage, and then it’s at least ten minutes for the valet to pull the car around. We should probably wait until he goes inside so he doesn’t see us.”

“Okay.”

Tailing someone wasn’t as easy as it looked on TV, especially in New York City. Since only a few cars at a time make any given traffic light, anxiety built inside me each time we got separated. But somehow we managed not to lose him. We trailed a few cars behind on the FDR Drive and then followed him onto I-87.

“It looks like he’s heading upstate,” Fisher said. “But I called the place that held the conference he told you he was going to. It was definitely only last weekend.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what to think. Maybe he’s meeting a woman up where the conference is anyway? So a new hotel charge makes sense?”

“Maybe. You’ve called him out on enough stuff that he knows you’re suspicious.”

We drove for a while, long enough that it seemed that was exactly what Aiden was doing, and we were going to be on the road for a while. But as we approached the exit near where Fisher and I grew up, Aiden put on his blinker and moved into the right lane.

“He knows the area, so he probably needs a bathroom break or gas and figured he’d stop here.”

Fisher dropped back a bit, letting a few extra cars get between us so we weren’t right behind him when we stopped at the exit ramp light.

“You’re oddly good at this tailing thing, Fisher.”

He smiled. “It’s not my first rodeo, love. Gay men can’t keep it in their pants for too long. Unfortunately, I’ve done this before.”

“Without me?”

He shrugged. “I figured you’d lecture me for following someone.”

He was probably right. A year ago I would’ve told him if he felt the need to follow someone, the person didn’t have his trust, and the relationship was doomed. Yet here I was… It was a stark reminder not to judge others unless I’d walked in their shoes.

“Where the hell is he going?” Fisher asked.

Aiden had passed all the little stores and the gas station right off the parkway. He was actually heading toward the neighborhood Fisher and I had grown up in—where my parents and Fisher’s dad still lived.

When Aiden made a right into the development where my parents lived, we had to drop back a lot since there were no cars between us. I again slumped down in my seat.

“Is he going to my parents’ house? What the heck would he be going there for?”

Fisher wiggled his brows. “Maybe he’s one of your mom’s downstairs guests.”

“Eww…don’t be gross.”

We’d been joking, but sure enough, Aiden made a left and drove down my parents’ block.

“Don’t turn,” I said. “If he’s going to my parents’ house, we should be able to see from here. Can you just pull up to the corner enough for us to peek?”

Fisher parked right at the stop sign, and we leaned forward to peer down the block. The Prius slowed and pulled into my parents’ driveway.

“What the hell is he doing? Why wouldn’t he tell me he was coming here? I just spoke to my mom the other day and she didn’t mention he was stopping by.”

Fisher shrugged. “Maybe they’re planning a surprise party for you or something?”

“My birthday isn’t for nine months.”

Once Aiden got out of the car and disappeared into the house, Fisher and I decided to pull down the block. We parked a few houses away and slid down in our seats.

For the next hour, I kept going over all the things that had made me suspicious. I finally sighed. “Maybe Aiden’s right and the diary I’m reading has made me paranoid, making me see things that aren’t there.”

“You had suspicions before you started reading this one,” Fisher reminded me.

“Yeah…but…” I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve definitely become obsessive about the idea that Aiden might be cheating, and I think a lot of it might be because of the stuff I’m reading. I mean, it’s my third time reading this damn diary, and I sit on the stairs at the library wondering if the people around me might be Alexandria or her husband. I just don’t understand how she can cheat on him—and then not tell him the baby she gave birth to might not even be his.”

“And the guy she’s sleeping with, he’s her husband’s buddy, right?”

I nodded. “It’s terrible. It’s like the ultimate betrayal—your wife and your best friend.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty shitty,” Fisher said. “Not much gets worse than that.”

The door to my parents’ house opened, and my heart jolted in my chest. “Someone’s coming.”

Fisher and I slouched down as far as we could while still being able to see out the window. My parents and my sister walked outside and stood on the top step, talking to Aiden for a few minutes. Eventually, my mom and dad said goodbye and went back inside, while my sister walked Aiden to his car. When they got to the Prius, they both walked around to the passenger side, and Aiden opened the door for Cecelia to get in. As she went to climb inside, he grabbed her hand. The rest seemed to play out in slow motion.

Aiden pulled her against him and backed her up against the car. A breeze blew her long, dark hair in front of her face, and he brushed it away…right before moving in for a kiss. Stunned and still in some sort of insane denial, I somehow expected my sister to push him off—like this was the first time it had happened. She’d smack him across the face and push him away.

But she didn’t. My sister wrapped her arms around my fiancé’s neck and kissed him back—two willing participants embroiled in a passionate kiss…in my parents’ driveway.

I couldn’t say a word. My mouth hung open in complete and utter shock. I’d forgotten Fisher was sitting next to me until he spoke.

“I stand corrected. There are worse things than your wife banging your buddy like in the diary you’re reading.” He shook his head in disbelief as he gawked with me. “That’s the ultimate fucking betrayal.”