I Wanted One Stepbrother, So All Three Claimed Me novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Leif's Night
Leif Lunde sat on the end of the Sixth Street dock with his boots hanging over black water.
He could not think of one thing he wanted.
It was a strange discovery.
He had gone looking for it for three hours, and run through the list the way he used to run through the doors at night.
A job. The union hall in Portland had been after him for two years.
A flat over the bakery on Commercial Street. A sailboat. A dog.
None of it caught.
*You're done,* his father had said on the porch, with a hand on his shoulder, so gently.
*You've raised them. You did it better than I could. I'm home by summer, and I'll take it from here. Go be a person.*
It should have been a gift.
It was the most frightening thing anyone had ever said to him.
He had been nineteen when the call came.
He had put down everything he was, the guitar and the apprenticeship in Seattle, and picked up the house.
He had carried it for six years, and he did not know what his hands were for, empty.
And he had said *I'm fine* to Kenji, with a smile, in the voice that wasn't his, and watched Kenji's face close.
He had broken the second rule in under a day.
The river moved, slow and cold, under the pilings.
He did not hear them come.
"Leif."
He did not turn his head.
Tilda kept a spreadsheet of where his truck parked, and he supposed she had shared it.
Feet on the boards. Three sets.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Wanted One Stepbrother, So All Three Claimed Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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