My Ex Is Engaged to My Stepsister, and I'm Still His Wife novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Roof
The roof of my building has a gravel floor, a brick parapet at waist height and a view of every light in downtown Nashville.
On Wednesday night the temperature was thirty-four degrees.
I had dragged the patio heater up from the bike shop's back lot, with the owner's blessing.
I had carried the quilt off my own bed.
I spread it on the gravel by the parapet, and I sat down on it in my winter coat with my phone in my hand.
I typed: Come up.
Josiah had been at the curb for two nights.
I heard the street door, and then his footsteps, steady and unhurried, all three flights and the iron ladder to the hatch.
His head came up through the opening, and he stood very still in the glow of the heater.
"Ms. Dunavant," he said.
"Close the hatch."
He did.
He stood there in his dark overcoat with his hands at his sides and his breath in clouds.
"Are you sure?" he said.
"I've been sure since Monday."
"You said not yet."
"I said not yet to something else." I patted the quilt. "Sit."
He sat beside me, not touching me, and looked at the skyline.
The lit towers of downtown stood in the cold air, and the tall one with the two spires at the top glowed blue.
"I thought about it all night," I said. "You sleeping down there because I told you to."
"I'd sleep there a month."
"I know you would. That's why it's no good." I turned to face him.
"I'm angry about the landing, and I'll be angry on Friday, and I'm going to keep saying so."
"I'd think less of you if you weren't."
"But you don't owe me a month in a truck," I said. "I want you up here."
"All right."
"And I want one other thing."
I held out my left hand.
The marks on my wrist had almost faded.
There was one left, faint and yellow, where Colt's thumb had gone.
"Put your hand on it," I said.
He did not move.
"Ms. Dunavant," he said. "I won't."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Ex Is Engaged to My Stepsister, and I'm Still His Wife are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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