Three Days in Town, and the Barista Already Knew My Order novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Main Street

Maura's POV

He said it to the ceiling, in the dark, with my hand still in his hair.

"I heard you at the Grange."

I did not ask what he meant.

Some part of me had known since the truck ride home, since the heater ticking and the three miles of nothing.

"You said I was a kid," he said. "You said it was nothing and you were passing time. I was behind you with the tray."

"I said it to make her stop looking."

"I know why you said it."

"Then what do you want me to say?" I said.

"Nothing tonight." His voice was quiet and not angry. "I've wanted to say it for six weeks and now I did. I'm not asking you to take it back. I'm saying you can say what you want about me. Say it to my face."

I lay on my back in his narrow bed and could not find a single word.

I went home at midnight and sat in my kitchen with the lights off, listening to the stove tick down.

Tuesday the café was shut, and when I got to the town office there was a cup on the step.

It was still warm.

Take your time. I'll be here.

He had written it in his square capitals and then, below, in smaller ones, added later: Not a kid. Still bringing the coffee.

I stood on the step in the cold, reading it, with the whole of Main Street waking up around me.

On Wednesday the selectboard woman came in at eleven to ask whether the Town Meeting warning had gone up on the board outside.

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