Chapter 2

If I hadn't happened to walk into that exact bar tonight, I would have never known.

I would have never seen Kylie—who told me she was working late at the office—holding alcohol in her mouth and feeding it to Robertson without a single shred of hesitation.

After she finished feeding him the whiskey, the crowd around them went wild. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

And Kylie actually did it. Egged on by the crowd, she pressed her lips against his. She closed her eyes, tilting her head to change angles several times.

She even leaned in deeper, completely lost in the moment.

I stood there, frozen.

At our wedding, when our guests chanted for us to kiss, she had flatly refused, using her deadly saliva allergy as the perfect excuse.

I clenched my fists and started walking toward them. But after only a few steps, I lost my footing and crashed straight into the bar counter.

Glasses shattered, sending a loud clatter through the room. Instantly, every eye in the bar turned to me.

The kissing couple stopped. Robertson, looking like a smug winner, raised an eyebrow. He walked over and stretched out a hand, pretending to help me up.

"Well, if it isn't Howard? What's wrong, buddy? Can't even walk straight?"

I slapped his hand away. "Get out of my face!"

Robertson shrugged, putting on a perfectly innocent act.

"Hey, don't be mad. We were just playing a game. You know Kylie and I have been like this since we were kids..."

I swung my fist at his face. But before my punch could land, Kylie threw herself in front of Robertson, completely ignoring how humiliating this was for me.

"This is a private party with all our friends. Have you thrown enough of a tantrum? Get the hell home right now!"

I let out a cold, humorless laugh. I walked straight past them, took a seat right in the middle of her friend group, and sat down.

"A gathering of friends? As your husband, don't I deserve a seat at the table?"

A heavy silence fell over the group. The two people sitting closest to me instinctively slid their chairs a few inches away.

"You have chronic bad breath and H. pylori bacteria, and yet you still have the nerve to crash our game? Aren't you afraid of infecting all of us?"

The guy sitting next to Robertson spoke up, his voice dripping with righteous indignation.

The others exchanged awkward glances. I looked at Kylie. She was sitting right next to Robertson, smiling and nodding along with the insult.

Because Kylie had refused to let me touch her all these years, the rumors about my "disgusting bacteria" and "terrible breath" had run rampant.

To save her face, I had never once defended myself.

And now, a secret so private was being thrown in my face as a joke by her friends to mock me.

And she just sat there, refusing to say a single word in my defense.

I pulled out my phone, opened my medical app, and flashed my latest digital health report. "Take a good look. I don't have any bacteria, and my breath is perfectly fine. So, I’m joining the next round."

Kylie stood up, trying to snatch my phone. "Stop it, Howard! Why are you being so childish?"

"Oh? And what about your saliva allergy, Kylie? Seems like you can kiss whenever you want now!"

Dozens of curious, gossiping eyes instantly locked onto us.

Kylie’s ears turned bright red. She grabbed my arm, trying to force me to shut up.

I shook her hand off. This time, she didn't try to stop me from joining the game.

I grabbed the dice cup and shook it violently. When I lifted it, I revealed the highest possible roll.

Everyone stared in utter shock. Including Kylie.

She rarely brought me to her social gatherings. She had no idea how good I actually was at these bar games.

"I win," I said coldly.

Robertson, who had been looking smug next to Kylie just a second ago, was now frozen like a statue.

"Robertson, since you love mouth-to-mouth so much, why don't you give Hillary a kiss?"

The rule of the game was simple: the winner could choose anyone at the table for a Dare.

Robertson couldn't back out, but his face turned incredibly sour.

Kylie had told me before that Hillary had been chasing Robertson for years. This dare should have been a favor to her.

But Kylie immediately spoke up to defend him. "Babe, come on. Robertson is shy. Let's just skip this round, okay?"

I felt my chest tighten, my voice turning incredibly cold. "You play, you pay. Why is it okay for Robertson to kiss my wife, but he can't kiss anyone else?"

Robertson clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms.

"It's just a game, Howard. Don't make things difficult for Robertson," Kylie pleaded, throwing me under the bus just to protect his feelings.

My stomach started to churn with a sickening pain, but I refused to lose my ground. "He's the one with bad luck. Why is that my fault?"

Unable to take it anymore, Robertson stood up and stormed out of the bar in a rage.

Kylie stood up immediately. She threw a freezing glare at me. "Are you happy now?"

With that, she ran out after him.

The party fell apart because of me.

Strangely, I didn't feel like a winner at all. I only felt a deep, crushing exhaustion.

I slowly stood up, the pain in my stomach growing sharper by the second.

By the time I stumbled into the restroom, I was vomiting nothing but burning, sour bile.