The Jealousy Game novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Four A.M.

"Don't say you'll go," I said. "And I won't say stay."

Casper stood with the toolbox half in the truck bed and did not move.

"If I tell you to stay, it's one sentence, and we both feel better," I said.

"I don't want it to be done in a sentence."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to come to my house tonight."

His throat moved.

"For dinner," I said. "I'll cook. You'll wash up."

"Tomorrow I open at four, and you're in my kitchen at four with your hands in flour."

"Every morning?"

"Until I say."

"That's a lot of mornings."

"You owe me fourteen months."

He took his hand off the toolbox.

"I'll be there at nine," he said, "and I'll bring my own apron."

He came at nine with a stained canvas apron folded under his arm.

He stood in my kitchen on Cooper Street and looked at the table.

It was the table my father had eaten at for forty years.

I made eggs and toast, because it was all I had that wasn't bread.

He washed up with his sleeves pushed above the elbow, and neither of us said much.

At ten, I took the dish towel out of his hand and hung it on the oven door.

"Upstairs," I said.

"Lena."

"It's my bed, in my house. I burned every sheet Brett slept on and bought new ones."

He followed me up.

I lit the lamp on the nightstand and turned around.

He stood in the doorway in the soft light with his bruised face, and his hands, those careful hands, hung empty at his sides.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Jealousy Game from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.