I SEE CHEATERS! So Yeah, My Fiancé's Wedding Went Up In Flames! novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Her House

The old man two doors down saw us coming and stood up out of his lawn chair.

He'd never stood up before. Not for the mattress, not for the ring, not for the locksmith.

"Well?" he said.

I took the deed out of my apron pocket and held it up.

He read it from the sidewalk, squinting.

Then he sat back down and raised his iced tea.

"About time," he said. "Welcome to the block, kid."

My key went into my white door and turned.

The house smelled like dust and somebody else's candles.

Kelsey's velvet curtains were gone. So were her prints, her rug and her fruit bowl.

The living room was empty except for one thing.

The mattress Rafferty had carried up my steps in May was still leaning against the wall, in its plastic, where he'd left it.

Cal looked at it. I looked at it.

"No," I said.

"Absolutely not," Cal said.

He picked up one end and I picked up the other, and we carried it back out the front door and down the steps.

We stood it up against the trash cans at the curb.

Across the street, a woman on her stoop started clapping. The old man joined in.

Cal took a little bow.

By the front door hung the little brass mailbox I'd bought at the hardware store on Girard.

The label on it still said "Corbett / Sheridan" in Rafferty's neat block capitals.

I peeled it off with my thumbnail. It came away in one long strip.

Cal handed me a marker from his truck without being asked.

I wrote "Corbett" on the brass in big crooked letters, and the old man gave it a thumbs-up from his chair.

"Okay," he said, dusting off his hands. "Where are you sleeping?"

I'd bought a mattress for the front bedroom in June, the week I'd changed the locks back.

It had been delivered in plastic, and I'd never let myself open it.

It was still up there under the good window, wrapped up tight.

Cal cut the plastic off with his pocketknife while I hung my linen curtains back up on the rod.

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