My Dad's Best Friend Said No Daddy Jokes, So I Made Him Say Yes novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Landfall

We rode it out in the ice house, because Lucius would not leave the boat and I would not leave Lucius.

It's cinderblock, a foot thick, with a flat roof and a concrete floor.

It was the only thing on the dock Rémy ever built to last.

By eleven the power was gone.

The lantern swung on its hook in the office, and the compressors sat dead in the dark, and the whole building hummed with the wind.

Rain came through the roof vents in sheets.

Every few minutes something struck the north wall, a board, a trash can, a piece of somebody's fence.

The sound went through the floor into my feet.

I stood in the doorway of the cold room with my arms around myself.

"You should be in Houston," Lucius said.

"I should be a lot of places."

"Monalisa."

"I'm here. Stop telling me to leave," I said.

He crossed the room in three strides.

He took my face in his hands, and his palms were wet from checking the lines, and his eyes were wild and tender at once.

"I love you," he said.

I went still.

He said it plainly, with the roof shaking over us.

"Not because you told me to. Not because you asked. I love you. I've loved you since you came into my kitchen for that gaff. I'd have loved you if you never let me touch you, and I'll love you if you walk out when this is over."

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