They Sold Me to the Crippled War God, So Why Was He Standing in My Father's Barn on Two Good Legs novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: The Organ Loft
I did not take the keys.
I told Bernadette to put them back in her purse, and she did, and left, still smiling.
A house with a mortgage signed on a Tuesday by a man now halfway to Biloxi was a debt with a porch.
If I lived in it, the bank would be my landlord and my father's name would be my address.
I stayed at the mill house two more nights, because Seb asked nothing and I had nowhere else.
On Monday I rented the room above the parish hall.
It was an old choir room with a slanted ceiling and a window onto the churchyard, and it had belonged to the organist before me.
Through the wall, the great pipe organ of St. Rose stood in the loft with its ranks of old zinc and wood.
I had tuned it every quarter for six years.
The room cost two hundred dollars a month, and I paid the priest in cash.
Seb carried my duffel up the narrow stair himself, and my tuning kit, and a box of his mother's good dishes that I had not asked for and could not refuse.
He set them down along the wall and stood in the middle of the floor with his hat in his hand.
He took in the cot, the lamp, the narrow window.
"It isn't large," he said.
"It's mine," I said.
"Yes."
"Term two," I said.
"I pay my way."
"You paid it Friday," he said.
"In an envelope under the sugar bowl.
"I haven't opened it."
"Open it," I said.
"It's for the weeks I stayed."
He looked at me.
His face was very quiet, and I saw him decide not to argue.
"I won't come up the stairs unless you ask me," he said.
"I won't wait at the bottom of them either.
"I'll be at the house."
He put on his hat and went down, and I stood listening to his boots grow smaller on the wood.
I had told him no in front of the parish, and then I had taken him in a pantry.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of They Sold Me to the Crippled War God, So Why Was He Standing in My Father's Barn on Two Good Legs are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 13 · All chapters · Chapter 15 →
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