I Married a Stranger to Ruin Them novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: First Kiss

I stood in the dim shop for a moment.

Then I grabbed my coat off the hook and went after him.

The snow was coming down thick and wet, soaking through my sneakers right away.

His tracks went across the yard, past the loading dock, and down the slope toward the river.

I followed them.

The bank behind the works was all mud and dead grass and one old willow leaning over the water.

He was standing under it with his hands in his pockets, watching the river go by black and fast.

Snow was collecting in his hair.

"Go back inside," he said without turning around. "You'll freeze."

"You don't get to say that and walk out."

"I just did."

"Then you don't get to say it and walk out and then tell me to go inside like I'm the one being stupid."

He turned around.

"What do you want me to do, Alice? Take it back?"

"No."

"Then what?"

I didn't know.

I'd chased him into the snow and I didn't have a single thing planned.

That never happened to me.

I always had the next line ready, in boardrooms, in labs, in my marriage.

I stood there in the mud with snow melting down my neck and nothing in my mouth.

"You can't just decide that," I said finally. "You can't just lose count."

"I didn't decide it. It happened. Like a crack in a piece. You don't decide a crack."

"I'm a terrible bet. Ask the bar."

"I know what the bar says."

"I'm a mess, Matt. I'm married and pregnant and broke and I sleep in your hockey room."

"I know."

"So why..."

"Because you're you." He took one step toward me. "Because you're the bravest person I've ever seen, and you smile when you're scared, and you put sauerkraut on everything now because my mom told you to, and you named my space heater."

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