The Mistress in the Room novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Night Before

The borrowed boat was a twenty-six-foot cabin cruiser that smelled of diesel and old varnish.

Evan took it out past the breakwater with one hand on the wheel and dropped anchor in the dark, a mile off the lawn.

The city stood along the shore in a long line of yellow light.

He turned off the engine, and the quiet came down over the water.

"You've done this before," I said.

"Every night for six years. It's the only place I could hear myself think."

He took a folded paper from his jacket and held it out.

"What's this?"

"The tenth one."

I opened it under the cabin lantern.

It was one page, in a blocky hand, with a coffee ring on the corner.

Fran. I'm not sorry I wrote the nine, or that you never read them. I'd write a tenth every day if you let me stay near enough to hand it over. Evan.

I read it twice.

"It's short," he said.

"It's the best one."

"You haven't read the other nine."

"I will." I folded the page into my pocket and looked up. "Take me to bed, Evan."

"Witness," he said, with a crooked smile.

"Witness, you said," I answered, and I pulled him down the three steps into the cabin.

The berth took up the whole of the bow, with a quilt on it that smelled of cedar.

He kissed me slowly there, standing, with his hands in my hair.

I had never had a night with nothing in it to prove.

"Nobody's watching," I said.

"Nobody."

"Nobody can film us."

"The gulls."

I laughed into his mouth.

He undressed me carefully, because the cabin was low and cold.

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