The Campus Bully Hounded Me Out of My Seat, Then I Told Him I Was Pregnant novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Boathouse Loft

Gunnar Kvale did not say a word at first.

He stood in the high beams with his hat in his hand, and I pulled my skirt down with a hand that would not stop shaking.

Aksel stepped in front of me.

It was not a gallant step.

It was the move of a man who had been standing in front of things all his life, and I felt his back go hard against my shoulder.

"Dad," he said.

"I'm going to pretend," Gunnar said slowly, "that I came out to check the church van's tires."

His eyes went to a place a foot to the left of my face, and they stayed there.

"The supper is nearly done.

"Your aunt is looking for Miss Solheim."

"Tell her we're coming," Aksel said.

"I'll tell her nothing," Gunnar said.

He put his hat back on.

He looked, in that moment, like a man who had walked into a room he had been avoiding for a very long time.

"Go home, Aksel," he said.

"And you, miss.

"Go home."

He walked back to the pickup, got in, and sat there with the engine off.

I did not know why he didn't drive away.

Aksel turned around.

His face was dark with something I could not read, and his chest was going up and down.

"I want to take you somewhere," he said.

"Where?" I said.

"No.

"I want to take you," I said.

"The loft in the boathouse."

I had not planned it.

I had planned a room and a door and my own say.

But he had put his hand on me in the dark and said sorry like a word he'd had to learn, and I was tired of keeping my secret in a narrow bed.

"I'm going to tell you something," I said.

"After, or before.

"I haven't decided."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once and held out his hand, the left one, the scar toward me.

I took it.

The boathouse was dark and smelled of cedar, oil and river water.

We climbed the inside stairs by the light of his phone, past the long pale hulls of the racing shells slung in their racks.

The loft was where he slept.

It was a long low room under the rafters, with a mattress on a platform, a lamp, a shelf of paperbacks and a round window onto the Vermillion.

The river lay black beyond the glass.

I stood in the middle of the floor.

"You sleep here," I said.

"When I can't sleep at the house," he said.

"You can't sleep anywhere."

"No."

He switched on the lamp, and it threw a gold circle across the planks.

I took off my coat and folded it over the back of a chair, and I did not look at the pocket.

← Chapter 5 · All chapters · Chapter 7 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend