Mom! Don't Pull The Curtain! novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: It's Not Your Clinic

Justin took the pen.

"Don't," I said.

"The offer ends when the market closes," Lena said. "Isn't that right, Justin? I'm very busy this afternoon."

"Lena's lawyer already wrote this up," he told me, quietly. "It's done."

"It is not done until you sign it."

"Then it's done now."

He signed on top of Mom's cash box, in front of the pickles and forty people.

Lena took the page, blew on the ink, and smiled.

"The files stay with me, naturally," she said. "For safety."

She clicked away down the aisle.

Mom put a hand on my arm before I could follow her.

"Not here, baby," she said. "Whatever you're about to do to him, do it where I can't hear."

Justin went to the clinic to hand over his keys.

I followed him in my green Subaru, with the dent in the bumper, and I made the whole forty-minute drive without turning on the radio.

The waiting room was dark.

The receptionist's desk was empty, and a light shone under the door of Lena's office.

Justin went in, put his keys on her desk, and came out again.

She hadn't been in there.

She had left the light on so he would see her name on the door.

"That's it," he said. "Eleven years, and it took four minutes."

"You didn't ask me."

"I asked you in front of the whole market."

"You told me. You didn't ask."

"What do you want me to say?" He pushed his hand through his hair. "That I'd rather watch you read your name on the board's letterhead? That I trust you not to be gone by Christmas?"

"What does Christmas have to do with it?"

"You're twenty-six," he said. "You came in for a cure, and I gave you one. When your mother stops being funny about it, you'll find someone who didn't pull a curtain on you."

I stared at him.

"That's what you think," I said. "That I'm cured, and you're the prescription."

← Chapter 13 · All chapters · Chapter 15 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend