I Was Her Servant for Five Years, Now She Begs Me to Stay novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Harbor Lights

Nolan's POV

Three weeks later I took her to the diner on the coast road.

It hadn't changed.

The same cracked red booths sat under the same flickering sign, and the waitress still wore a pencil behind her ear.

I had not been inside it since the night I proposed.

Camille stopped in the doorway with her hand on the frame.

"I remember the bell," she said, as it jingled over our heads.

"It was louder then."

"It wasn't. I was louder."

We took the third booth by the window.

I ordered coffee and a slice of lemon cake, because I had to, and she laughed until she had to put her face in her napkin.

"It's terrible," she said, after the first bite.

"It's always been terrible."

"I paid for the first one with a whole cake of my own."

"You did. It was better."

She smiled at me across the table.

She had a sunburn across her nose from working the lot all week.

Her hands were healed.

On the back of her left one was a black smear of grease that she had never quite managed to wash off.

"You haven't asked about the ring," she said quietly.

"I'm carrying it."

"I know. I've watched you carry it for three weeks." She turned her coffee cup in its saucer. "You touch your pocket whenever you think I'm not looking."

"You've been looking."

"I always look."

The jukebox in the corner started up.

It was an old record, and a woman's voice came out of it, warm and crackling.

We both went still.

"Harbor Lights," Camille said.

"The same song," I said.

The first verse went by.

She watched my face while it played, and when the second one started she put her hand on top of mine and sang it.

Her voice was low and clear and a little flat.

She had the words exactly.

I had always had them wrong.

I sang along off key, and the waitress glanced at us, and the old man at the counter turned around and smiled.

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