The Gold Digger's Ledger novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Fireworks on the Fourth Floor

Miranda's POV

I walked uptown on the Fourth of July with my hands in my pockets.

The sidewalks were full of families carrying folding chairs toward the river.

I had waited all day at my kitchen table for my phone to ring.

At seven, I stopped waiting and put on the navy dress.

Gus opened the townhouse door himself, in his smoking jacket, with a flag pin on the lapel.

"Miss Dunleavy," he said. "I believe you left something on the fourth floor."

"What did I leave?"

"A man," said Gus. "He's been up there since noon with your book, and he won't eat."

I took the stairs two at a time.

The fourth-floor door stood open.

The rooms were bare and blue with dusk, and the windows were wide, and the first firework had just opened over the river.

Tristan sat on the one chair in the room where the piano had been.

My ledger lay open on his knee.

He looked up, and he had been crying, and he did not hide it.

"You read it," I said.

"Yes."

"That's term one."

"Broken," he said. "By invitation."

"What do you have to say?"

"Day two." His voice cracked. "I knocked once and went away. I'm an idiot."

"You went away."

"I'd have stayed if you'd said so."

"I know." I stepped into the room. "That's why I was angry."

"I called you a paid girlfriend so my mother would stop looking at you."

"I know that too."

"You left anyway."

"I left the deposit," I said. "Don't tell me you didn't count it."

He laughed, wetly, and wiped his face with the back of his wrist, over the pale band.

"Today's envelope is on the pillow."

"Term two."

Another burst of color went off beyond the glass, red and then gold.

I crossed the room and knelt on the dust sheet in front of the chair.

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