He Put Our Love on Pause, Then Married Her Behind My Back novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Cold Room

The landlord was waiting on my doorstep at eight the next morning, holding his hat.

He was a heavy, sad man in his seventies who had owned the building since before I was born.

He had never once come into the shop without a complaint about the sign.

"Miss Corliss," he said. "I owe you an apology."

"Come in," I said. "Roz, put the coffee on."

"I'm putting the coffee on and I'm also sharpening my elbows," Roz said from the back.

He sat down at the worktable.

"Mr. Pennell called me on a Thursday," he said. "He said you were a poor tenant, and he'd see that I got a better one if I let your lease lapse in the spring.

"I said I'd think about it. I'm ashamed to say I did think about it."

"And then?"

"And then my granddaughter showed me a video on her phone." He turned the hat around in his hands. "She said, Grandpa, that's the lady from the flower store. She said, you can't."

Roz came in with three mugs and put one down in front of him, hard.

"So I'd like to sell you the building," he said. "The whole of it. At a fair price, with time. I'm tired, and I'd rather it went to someone who carries her own ladder."

I looked at Roz.

Roz looked at me.

"How much?" I said.

He named a number, and my stomach went somewhere near my shoes.

"That's the number you'd have given Mr. Pennell," Roz said, "isn't it?"

The landlord coughed.

"It is the number I mentioned to him."

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