Offsides - A Forbidden Summer novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Devin's POV: The Dock

Devin's POV

On Wednesday at four, Mara Windle texted me a picture of a wooden dock and nothing else.

I knew the dock.

Katie had learned to swim off the end of it as a kid, and her mother kept the photo on our hallway wall.

I had not followed her for three days.

I had left her one message on Monday, "I'm here when you want me, and I'm not going anywhere," and she hadn't answered it.

I'd slept on the den couch with the dog on my feet, because I couldn't make myself lie down in the bed.

Under the picture, Mara had added, "She's here till six. If you make her cry, I will bury you in the garden centre."

I took the truck.

The lake was flat and brown-green, and the dock ran out into it for forty feet.

Katie sat at the far end in a swimsuit top and cutoffs, with her feet in the water and her hair wet.

She heard my boots on the boards, and she didn't turn around.

I stopped three steps behind her.

"Can I sit?"

"It's a dock," she said. "It's not mine."

I sat down beside her, a careful foot of wood between us, and took my boots off and put my feet in the water.

It was colder than I expected.

"Say it," she said. "All of it. I don't want the version you gave me in the garage."

"All right."

I looked at the far shore.

"April 28 was a Tuesday. I came home from a faculty meeting, and Renee was at the kitchen table with a folder and her coat on."

"Did you fight?"

"No. That's what I'm ashamed of." I watched a water bug skate away from my toes. "She said she'd met someone. I said okay. I didn't argue, and I didn't ask her to stay."

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