Too Late to Love Me novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Couch

When I got home, there was a man on my couch and he was eating Hattie's eggs.

The couch was a green velvet disaster Hattie had dragged in off the curb in September.

Zane sat at one end of it with a plate on his knee and a dish towel over his shoulder.

He had taken off the gray cap, and his hair stood up on one side.

It was Zachary's hair, and I wanted to flatten it, and I wanted to throw the plate at his head.

"He eats like a Labrador," Hattie announced from the kitchen.

"Three eggs, four pieces of toast, and he said thank you to the toaster."

"Hattie," I said.

"I know, I know, he's the devil's twin."

"But he washed the pan."

"Zachary has never washed a pan in his life."

"I'm not Zachary," Zane said, without looking up.

"I know," Hattie said, and pointed her spatula at him.

"That's why you can stay."

I dropped my bag on the mattress and sat on the arm of the couch, farther from him than I needed to.

"Friday," I said.

"You were at Ware this morning."

"You heard her."

"You said Regan would steal my harbor, and you said it before she did."

"Yes."

"So tell me how I win."

"You paint it," Zane said.

"She can't."

"I sat through three years of Regan's shows, June."

"Every canvas she hung had somebody else's hand in it, and nobody ever caught her."

"Nobody ever made her do it with a brush in her hand and the room watching."

He put the plate on the floor.

"You will."

His eyes met mine, and his were a shade lighter than Zachary's.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Too Late to Love Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.