The Man Stalking Me Said Stop Working Alone, and the Kind Vet Was the One Who Let My Tire Down novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Ask Me Properly

I sent him home.

I did it on the courthouse steps in the dusk, in front of reporters who were pretending not to listen.

Pavel had gone ahead to the car.

Matt stood a yard from me with his coat open and his hands at his sides, and snow came down on his shoulders.

"You kept your word," I said.

"I said I would," said Matt.

"You didn't stand."

"You didn't say my name."

"I'm saying it now," I said.

"Matt Ravnik.

"Go home."

His face did not move.

He had learned over eleven weeks how to take a sentence like that and keep standing.

"Is that stop?" he said.

"No," I said.

"Stop is the word I gave you in the lot, and I'll never need it with you again.

"This is a different one."

I came down a step so that we were level.

"I love you," I said.

"I said it in the sauna, and I meant it, and I mean it now.

"I'm also still angry.

"You stood in my lot for eleven weeks and never asked me one thing.

"You decided what I could bear, and then you bore it for me."

"Yes," he said.

"You were right about all of it," I said.

"You were right about the vet and the sheriff and the Haugens.

"Being right still didn't give you the keys to my life.

"I want you to ask me.

"Not for tonight.

"For all of it, properly, with a day and a place and my answer in my own mouth."

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