His Favorite Shirt novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Thirty Days

Bea's hatchback pulled up outside the cottage at noon, with the back seat full of camera cases.

She climbed out in her denim jacket and her pins, pushed her glasses up and hugged me so hard my feet left the path.

"I drove the speed limit the whole way," she said. "Almost. Tell me everything."

I told her in ten minutes, standing in the cottage doorway.

She listened to the recording on my phone with her mouth open and then asked me to play the last part again.

"Okay," Bea said. "I'm going to ask you something, and I need you to not be mad at me."

"Go ahead."

"Your studio lease. Who got you that space?"

"Heath did. Six years ago." I felt the floor tilt a little. "His father's company owns the building."

"Do you still have a lease, or are you month to month?"

I got my laptop out and found the PDF.

We read it on the bed with Bea's finger moving down the screen.

The first term had ended last June, and since then I had been renting on a month-to-month basis.

"He can do it," Bea said quietly. "Thirty days' notice, no reason needed. He can do it legally."

"I know."

"We have four weddings booked in the next six months and all the gallery prints in that room."

"I know, Bea."

She closed the laptop and looked at me.

"So what are you going to do?"

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