My Fiancé Chose My Best Friend-At My Dad’s Funeral novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Door Behind the Lobby

The key opens a locked office in the Merchants Building full of thirty years of the firm's rent ledgers; Alexander finds her there, and Braden texts that the guard says she is in the building.

I took the bus downtown with the funeral program still in my hand.

I didn't go home. Home was Braden's apartment, and I couldn't stand in it yet.

The guard at the Merchants Building desk looked up from his phone.

"Tilda? It's nine o'clock on a Saturday."

"I left something on six," I said. It was the first lie I had told in a year.

He waved me through. He liked me. I had brought him a birthday muffin every March for three years.

The tag on the brass key said Lobby, rear, door B.

I had walked past door B every morning since I started.

It sat in the short hall behind the elevators, beside the water fountain.

The sign on it said Maintenance.

I had never once seen anyone go in.

The key turned on the first try.

Inside was a small office with a green desk lamp, a steel desk and a gray filing cabinet.

It smelled like my father's truck, of coffee and metal and old paper.

A calendar from the bus depot hung on the wall, turned to October.

Beside it was a crayon drawing of a bus. A kid had signed it in capital letters.

TILDA, AGE 7.

I sat down in his chair.

My throat closed up. I let it.

When I could see again, I opened the top drawer of the desk.

It held a black ledger with a rubber band around it. The label said EH HOLDINGS.

Emmett Harlan. EH.

I took off the band and turned the pages.

Every line was in his square handwriting.

One payment came in on the first of every month, thirty years back, from a tenant listed as the firm.

My firm. The one where I answered the phones.

The amounts were small.

I knew what other offices on Penn Avenue paid, because I booked the conference room for the leasing agents' lunches.

My firm paid about a third of that.

On the inside cover he had written a line and underlined it twice.

Lease ends Dec 31. Renewal rent set by owner only.

I read it three times.

Under it, in smaller letters, he'd added: She sits on six. I can see her desk from the bus stop.

I put my hand flat on the page.

For thirty years my father had fixed city buses and come home smelling of diesel.

He had worn the same work jacket for a decade.

He had eaten lunch out of a paper bag.

And he had owned the ground under every desk in my office.

The door opened behind me.

I shut the ledger so fast the lamp rocked.

Alexander Rhodes stood in the doorway in his funeral suit with his tie pulled loose. He had a banker's box in one arm.

"The guard said you'd come up," he said. "I saw the light under the door from the elevator."

"I'm just getting something out of storage," I said. "My father did odd jobs here."

"Did he?"

"Yes."

He looked at the lamp, the ledger under my hand and the crayon drawing.

"You're lying badly," Alexander said. "I like that about you."

I stared at him.

Three years of mornings.

He had always said Good morning, Tilda, and then he'd wait until I finished answering.

"I'm sorry about your father," he said. "I should have stood up in that chapel."

He rubbed his jaw.

"I sat there and watched them, and I couldn't think how to stop it without making it worse for you."

"You came," I said. "Nobody else from the firm did."

"I'd have come if I'd had to sit on the floor." He shifted the box.

"I've been trying to find out who owns this building for two months."

"Every letter I send the management company goes nowhere."

I kept my hand on the ledger.

"Why?"

"The firm's lease ends in December. I'd like to pay a fair rent to someone who deserves it."

He looked at my hand on the ledger.

"That's all. I'm going to pretend I didn't see you in here."

I let out a short breath. "Thank you."

"Can I drive you somewhere?"

"I'm fine."

"Your coat is in the chapel," he said. "I brought it."

He set the box down, took a black wool coat off the top of it and held it open.

I put my arms into the sleeves. His hands didn't touch my shoulders. He just held the collar until it settled.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I took it out. The screen said Braden, and the preview was already open.

We need to talk about your dad's papers before you do anything.

A second text landed under it.

The guard says you're in the building. Stay right where you are.

I hadn't told Braden where I was going.

I had only told the guard.

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