Once I got back into town, I made a quick detour. Didn’t want to, but I needed to know for sure.

I walked up the sidewalk to the townhouse with green siding and rang the doorbell of unit twenty-two. Then I switched on my phone’s voice recorder.

Forgive me, James.

Kristen opened her front door wearing a coy smile. “Hi.” She was in a tank top so low-cut I could almost see nipple and yoga pants that were nearly painted on. Had she changed when I texted her, or did she always lounge around dressed like that? Fuck if I knew.

“I have practice soon, so I can’t stay long,” I said, stepping inside the entry. “I wanted to talk to you about last night.”

“What about it?” She looked at me suspiciously as she shut the door behind me and locked it.

I leaned against the wall, trying hard to affect calm. “Maybe I was too hasty. I was in a bad mood. But you were right. That night with you and Nikki was pretty hot.” I choked down my nausea so I didn’t dry heave in front of her.

“I know, right?” Kristen batted her lashes at me.

God, she was easy to play.

“Too bad I never got to see the video for myself,” I added.

She sniffed. “I thought you were all about your girlfriend these days.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t reminisce about the past a little.” The words were hard to force out, bitter in my mouth.

“Guess you shouldn’t have made me delete it.”

In the background, her roommate Charlotte walked by. Did she know?

I lowered my voice in hopes that Charlotte couldn’t hear. “Come on, Kristen. I bet you could find it for me.”

“Hmm.” She shrugged, playing with a strand of her dark hair. “I might be able to dig it up if I tried.”

I knew it. I fucking knew it.

“Try?” I gave her a flirty smile while hating myself inside. “For old times’ sake?”

“Fine.” Kristen rolled her eyes. “Hang on.” She pulled out her phone and tapped at the screen.

My heart raced while I waited. After a minute, she handed her phone to me—and there it was. I watched the whole clip with the volume on low, feigning interest. I fought the instinct to smash her phone into pieces. I couldn’t show my hand. Not yet.

As I had suspected, the video was four minutes of me banging Nikki, then her blowing me while we smoked a joint. The clip stopped before the moment I’d caught Kristen and told her to stop recording, conveniently painting me as a willing participant and eliminating all references to her.

She’d cropped the video. Shit. I needed the original. Somehow. It was the only thing that might exonerate my ass.