My First Love Returned, His Stand-In Begged Me to Stay novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Tea With Constance

Constance apologizes warmly and offers a family weekend at the lake; Monty kisses Selah on her landing.

I got into the car because I wanted to hear what she would say.

Bree stood on the sidewalk with her arms crossed and mouthed, "Text me."

Constance VanAlen lived on the fortieth floor of a building with a doorman who knew her name.

Her sitting room smelled of cut lilies.

She poured the tea herself and put the sugar tongs in my hand.

I didn't take sugar, but I didn't say so.

"First," she said, "I owe you an apology, and I'm going to give it badly, so I'll give it quickly."

She set down her cup.

"Six years ago I sent my son to Zurich."

She turned her cup on its saucer.

"His father had just had the stroke, and Monty was falling apart. I thought distance would save him."

She looked up.

"I took his phone because I couldn't stand to watch him call you at three in the morning."

"He says he never sent me that text."

"He's told me so too."

She looked at her hands.

"I wish I could say I didn't understand why you believed it."

I waited for more.

She didn't give it. She only reached over and touched my wrist, lightly, for a second.

"I never thought you were wrong for my son. I was wrong for thinking he was ready."

It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in two days.

I hated how much I wanted it to be true.

"Did you know he wrote to me?"

"I knew he was desperate to." She sighed. "I didn't know about the letters until the boy told me."

"Kip told you?"

"Last night, on the phone. He was very upset."

She tilted her head.

"Whatever he did, Selah, he did it badly. And he's frightened for you. Both of those can be true."

I looked at the lilies.

It seemed strange that Kip had called her before he'd come to Bree's door.

Then it seemed ordinary.

She was his aunt.

She was the one he called when his mother's furnace broke.

"I'm not here to push you at anyone," Constance said. "I want you in this family either way. That's the whole of my plan."

"Why?"

"Because I remember the day your bandages came off."

She smiled.

"Monty walked the length of that hospital corridor six times, practicing what to say."

"He never told me that."

"I've never seen him so scared. I thought, there's a boy who's going to be all right."

I had been eighteen.

I remembered the light, and that I had cried.

I remembered seeing Monty's face for the first time, and being sure he was the voice I had listened to for three weeks.

"Do you still hate bleach?" she asked gently. "The smell?"

"I can't be in a room with it."

"I'll tell the housekeeper."

She patted my hand.

"Come to the lake this Friday. All of us, in daylight. The house is lovely in November."

She set down her cup.

"You can look at everything and decide with a clear head."

"Kip too?"

"Kip is family," Constance said. "Kip always comes."

Monty was waiting in the lobby when I got off the elevator.

He had his hands in his coat pockets, and he fell into step beside me without asking where I was going.

It was snowing again. Fat, slow flakes.

"She was kind to you," he said.

"She was."

"That's how she gets what she wants." He said it fondly, not bitterly. "Sorry. She also means it."

We walked three blocks before I spoke.

"I told Kip thirty days," I said. "Nobody touches me until I say."

"Including me?"

"Including you."

He thought about it, and I watched him not argue.

"All right," he said. "Thirty days."

"You're not going to fight me on that?"

"I fought for six years to get back. I'm not going to lose you over a rule you made to protect yourself."

We stopped at Bree's building.

Under the entry light, snow was melting in his hair.

He kept his hands in his pockets, and he kept them there on purpose, with his shoulders very straight.

He looked at my mouth once, and then he looked away.

That did it.

I stepped in and kissed him.

He made a low sound against my lips and didn't move his hands.

I took hold of the front of his coat and kissed him harder.

I felt him shaking with how badly he wanted to touch me.

"Selah," he said, rough. "You said."

"I'm saying it now. Once."

He put one hand flat on the brick beside my head instead of on me.

Then he kissed me back, slow and deep, and I forgot the cold.

When I stepped away my pulse was loud in my ears.

"That's all," I said.

"That's all," he agreed, breathing hard.

He didn't try for more. I turned the key in the door.

"Selah."

I looked back.

"Mother asked Kip to the lake an hour ago," Monty said. "He said yes before she finished asking."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

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