Five Hours a Year novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Night Before

By Sunday night, I could recite the tenants' case in my sleep, and I was too wired to do either.

I stood in the middle of Alec's bare flat in my stockings, with my closing argument in my hand.

He sat at the table with his sleeves rolled and his tie off, listening.

"Again," he said.

"I've done it six times."

"Do it once more, and do the last paragraph slower."

I lifted the page and read.

"Forty families paid rent for a roof, and for three winters they got a bucket. The law doesn't ask them to be grateful. It asks the landlord to keep his promise."

"Slower."

"The law doesn't..."

I stopped, because he had stood up.

He crossed the room without hurrying and took the pages out of my hand and set them on the table.

"Your rule was after the hearing," I said.

"I know what my rule was."

"The complaint is sitting right there on the counter."

"Then I'll turn it over." He did, without looking. "Keep going. The last paragraph."

"Alec, I can't do it with you standing there."

"You'll have a judge staring at you tomorrow." His hands settled at my waist. "You should practice with something harder."

He turned me around so that I faced the window, and the lights of the street, and he stood behind me.

"The law doesn't ask them to be grateful," he said into my hair.

I said it after him, and my voice shook.

He undid the zipper of my skirt, one tooth at a time.

"It asks the landlord to keep his promise."

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