He Brought His First Love Home Again, So I Left novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Donor Dinner

Ward's POV

I told myself the donor dinner was not a date, and I kept telling myself all the way down River Street.

Callie sat in the passenger seat in a green dress she had borrowed from Dot, with her hands folded very tightly in her lap.

She had said she was coming before I could say she shouldn't.

"If they're going to talk about me, I'll be in the room," she had said, and I had not found an argument.

At a red light I looked over and made a mistake.

I said what I had been carrying since three in the morning.

"In the kitchen you said you'd go back if he showed up at the gate."

She turned her head.

"And then I said no."

"You did. I believed you in the kitchen." I kept my eyes on the light. "In the car I'm less sure."

"That isn't fair."

"My wife stayed until her father's surgery was finished," I said. "She was kind to me for nearly a year. After the funeral she told me I'd been very comforting, like a good coat."

The light turned green, and I did not move.

"You think I'm using you for a coat," Callie said quietly.

"I think you've had a very bad month, and I'm standing nearest the door."

Someone behind us leaned on a horn.

She looked out of her window and said nothing at all, and I drove the last four blocks knowing I had spoiled it.

The hotel ballroom was gold and white, with a hundred people at round tables eating small crab cakes.

Corinna sat at the chair's table in a cream dress, with her nails freshly painted red.

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