Never Yours Again novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Front Row Center

The runway at the Lakeshore Hall was sixty feet of white lacquer, and at eleven at night I had it to myself.

The crew had gone home after the tech run.

I had sent every one of them away with a smile, and I had left the work lights burning over the empty rows.

Row one, center, on the aisle, sat my chair.

Someone had already taped a card to it with my name in black marker.

I stood next to it for a long time.

Then I took out my phone and texted a man who had said he wouldn't call again:

"Stage door. Come alone."

He was there in ten minutes.

I heard the steel door, and then his footsteps on the concrete, slow and even, the footsteps of a man who has decided not to run.

He stopped at the end of the aisle in his dark overcoat.

His hands were open at his sides, the way they had been in his apartment.

"I got your message," Ellis said.

"I can read."

"You wrote 'alone.' I wasn't sure if you meant it as a threat."

"I meant it as an order."

Something moved at the corner of his mouth.

"You told me you were done deciding for me," I said. "So I'm deciding. Out loud, under the work lights."

My throat tightened.

"That was the first thing you've ever said that I believed."

He didn't answer.

I walked up the aisle until I was close enough to touch his coat.

"I'm still furious," I said.

"I know."

"I think I'll be furious for a long time. You watched me, Ellis. You watched me love the wrong man for five years and you never said a word, and I'm going to hate that every time I see you across a table."

"That's fair."

"It isn't fair. It's just true."

I took hold of his lapels.

"I know exactly who you are," I said. "I know what you did and what you didn't. I'm not confused, and nobody is making me. I want you anyway."

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