Chapter 10: The Room Above the Shop

Hattie sent me the clip.

I watched it standing in the middle of the room with my lip still bleeding.

Brooke's mother sat on a studio couch in a pink blazer.

"He took it the morning of the wedding," she told the host. "My daughter is devastated. She has nothing left."

"I never touched that account," I said to the phone.

"Play it again," Ingrid said, from the doorway.

I played it again.

"She says 'the morning of,'" Ingrid said. "She says it twice. People who tell the truth don't repeat the date."

"They do if they're proud of it."

"Then she'll say it a third time, and somebody will ask her how you got into her account from the front seat of a truck."

I laughed, to my own surprise. It hurt my lip.

"Let her talk," Ingrid said. "Liars lose count."

She went downstairs.

I spent the rest of the day on the dock drawings and did not look at my phone again.

At dusk the rain came in off the lake, hard and sideways.

I was at the little table by the window, working the dock numbers by lamp.

I heard her boots on the stairs.

She knocked once and walked in with a bottle of cheap red wine and two coffee mugs.

"The rent is due on the first," she said. "That's three weeks. I'm not here for rent."

"What are you here for?"

"You told me a story today."

"You asked."

"I didn't say anything. I let you."

She set the mugs on the table.

"That's a rule broken. It's my rule, so I get to decide what it costs."

"What does it cost?"

She poured wine into both mugs, handed me one, and drank half of hers.

"I haven't decided," she said.

I put the mug down.

She was standing very near.

Rain ran down the window glass behind her, and the lamp lit one side of her face.

"Ingrid."

"Yes."

"I'm a mess."

"I know. I've seen the video."

The corner of her mouth moved.

"I'm not looking for a man who has it together. I have a yard."

Keep reading free with an account. Start An Anonymous Confession Game Ruined My Wedding from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.