A Second Chance at Love novel · Chapter 9 of 12
Chapter 9: Canal Park
I didn't say anything to the cameras.
I walked down the steps past Mr. Engstrom with the crew around me, and nobody got a shot of my face.
By six we'd taken over the back half of a bar in Canal Park.
It had fishing nets on the ceiling and a window full of the lift bridge.
The deckhands pushed four tables together. The cook ordered every appetizer on the menu and told the waitress the fleet was paying, which it wasn't.
Kat climbed onto a chair with a basket of fries.
"To the chief," she shouted, "who read an email so hard a rich boy forgot how numbers work!"
The whole back of the bar roared.
The chief pretended to hate it.
She ate the fries.
I sat at the end of the table with my back to the wall and the coat over my chair, and for an hour I just let myself be happy.
Lars was across from me.
He didn't say much.
Every time I looked up, he was already looking at me.
Every time, he didn't look away.
At eight the door opened and Prescott came in with three friends from the hearing.
The friends went to the bar.
Prescott came straight to our tables.
The deckhands went quiet one by one.
"Keira," he said. "Can we talk like adults? Just for a minute."
"We can talk here."
He glanced at the crew.
"Fine." He put his hands in the pockets of his quarter-zip. "Here's an offer. A good one. I'll put your name on the plaque, under mine. Co-designer. You get an interview with the fleet after you graduate."
"And?"
"And on May second you come to the dinner and stand next to me." He smiled. "When they show the ice night, you say thank you. On camera. One sentence. Then this is all over and everybody looks good."
The bar had gone quiet enough to hear the TV over the door.
I thought about three years of thank you.
About the hospital, and the ambulance, and the hoodie folded on my seat.
"No," I said.
He laughed. "You haven't even thought about it."
"I've thought about it for three years," I said. "I'm done thanking you. For anything."
"You'd be dead without me."
"I'd be dead because of you," I said. "You were standing on the shore."
Somebody at the bar went, "Ooh."
Prescott's face went red from the collar up.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of A Second Chance at Love are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend