My Fiancé Chose His Ex, So I Chose Myself novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Night Before

"Then as what?" I said.

Hugh stood on my landing with the rain running off his coat onto my mat.

"As the man she's telling everybody walked out on his baby," he said. "She'll say my name up there. She can't help it. When she does, I stand up."

"In front of two hundred and forty people."

"She picked the number, not me."

I took his wet cap out of his hands and hung it on my doorknob.

"Come in," I said. "You're dripping on my landing."

"It's a very small landing."

"It's mine."

He came in.

On Friday night he cooked dinner in my kitchen, which was a mistake for both of us.

The kitchen was the size of a phone booth, and so was Hugh.

He stood at my two-burner stove frying eggs and potatoes with his elbows tucked in.

"You hit the cabinet," I said.

"The cabinet hit me."

"Your head's in the light fixture."

"Your light fixture's in my head." He flipped a potato. "Boat food. This is what we ate on the night shift at two in the morning. Eggs, potatoes, hot sauce and lies."

"What lies?"

"Fish we caught. Women we didn't." He looked over his shoulder at me. "You're laughing at my eggs."

"I'm laughing at your elbows."

We ate on the mattress with the plates on our knees, because I still didn't have chairs.

The eggs were good.

I told him so, and he looked so pleased that I had to look away from him.

My mother's blue velvet box sat open on the windowsill.

Both earrings were in it, the one from the tug's deck and the one from the mud.

Hugh looked at them while he ate.

"Tell me about her," he said.

I put my fork down.

"My father left when I was four," I said. "She had a shop to run and a kid on her hip. She used to put me under the cutting table with a bag of buttons to sort by color."

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