Chapter 12: Ninety-Six

Four days later I was sweeping sawdust off the floor of Guthrie Boat Repair for twelve dollars an hour, paid in cash.

Frankie had hired me because no one else would.

I had no papers, no past, and a reputation in Port Hollis as the girl who humiliated the Gresham heir in front of sixty people.

"You sweep like you're mad at the floor," Frankie said from under a hull.

"I'm mad at everything."

"Good. Keep the broom."

She slid out on her creeper and looked at the air beside my shoulder.

"Yours dropped to seventy-one by Tuesday," she said. "Then it stopped falling."

"Because of her."

"Because of her." Frankie sat up. "Summer's number is at eighty-two. She's with him every night. He's lonely, and she's soft with him."

"Eighty-two in four days."

"He's grieving you, and she's the one holding the tissues."

"She's feeding it."

"I can't get near him." Her voice was raw. "He won't answer my calls. I said one thing to him and he threw it at me in front of his whole office."

I put my broom down.

"Then I'll go," I said. "She'll back off with me in the room."

"He'll humiliate you."

"He can try."

The Boathouse was the nicest restaurant on the lake, and it was owned by Heath's father.

I walked in at noon in my work boots, with sawdust still in my hair.

Every head turned.

Heath sat at a corner table by the window, with Summer next to him in a cream sweater.

She had her hand on his arm.

He had lost weight in four days, and his eyes were bloodshot.

When he saw me he went very still.

"Look who it is," Summer said, bright and gentle. "Ainsley, hi. Do you want to sit with us?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start His Affection Meter Hit 100% from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.