Chapter 21: After

On Sunday morning I found the sale notice exactly where I had left it, under the fruit bowl.

The edges had gone soft.

I took it out, read it once more, and lit the corner with a kitchen match.

It burned down to my fingers before I dropped it in the sink.

"That's very satisfying," Cal said from the doorway.

"It's the only one I'm ever going to get."

He crossed the kitchen in his socks and put his chin on top of my head.

Devin sat at the table with a mug and watched us.

He looked like a man who still couldn't believe he was allowed to.

I sat down across from him.

Under the table I slid my bare foot into Cal's lap as he took the next chair.

His hand closed around my ankle.

I watched his face go still, and I watched Devin watch it.

"Same ankle," I said.

"Same ankle," Cal said hoarsely. "You were awake?"

"Every second."

"I know."

"I know you know."

Devin lifted my hand off the table and kissed the inside of my wrist.

I let him.

We sat like that, three people wearing a ridiculous amount of feeling, until the doorbell rang.

It was the deputy.

He stood on the porch with his hat in his hands.

"Miss Kincaid. Your uncle's out on bond since six this morning."

Cal's hand tightened on my ankle.

"He's been told to stay off your property and out of your mother's affairs," the deputy said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Thought I Was Asleep, So I Let Them Keep Lying from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.