My Stepbrother's Regret novel · Chapter 26 of 32
Chapter 26: The Ledger
I didn't open the door right away.
I stood on my side of the glass with the old man's pocket watch still in my hand.
She stood on hers.
The streetlight was in her hair, and she looked older than I'd ever let myself see her.
"Hollyn," she said through the glass. "I'm not going to cry."
"That'd be new."
"I know."
I unlocked the door.
She didn't come in. She just bent and unzipped the suitcase on the sidewalk, right there on Wabash at midnight.
There were no clothes in it.
There was a bath towel, folded around something square.
She unwrapped it and held it out to me with both hands.
It was a book.
An old account book, green cloth, the corners worn down to the gray cardboard underneath. A rubber band around it, gone soft.
"He keeps it in the trunk," she said. "Under the spare tire. He's kept it there since Amarillo. He does the sums on Sunday nights with a pencil and a beer."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of My Stepbrother's Regret are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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