The Don's Wife Never Looks Back novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: Permits

I stood at the grave until the Mercedes was gone.

Marisa's cousin started his leaf blower again, very carefully, at the far end of the row.

"Pick me," Marisa said. "What does that mean, pick me?"

"I don't know."

I picked up the lily Livia had laid over Mama's name and threw it in the bin by the path.

Then I went back and picked up the rest of them, and threw those away too.

On the way back I wrote a letter to St. Agnes Children's Home on a page from my sketchbook.

I pushed it through the mail slot of the old brick building on the South Side myself.

I didn't know if anyone was still there to read it.

When I got back to the studio, Nathaniel was standing at the front window with a letter of his own.

It was on city paper.

He held it up so I could read it from the door.

STOP WORK ORDER. Permit revoked pending review.

It was the Cermak building.

Six floors of co-op apartments for families, his biggest job, a year of his life.

They'd poured the footings in September.

"It came by courier at noon," he said. "With a very polite note. No reason given. Review could take eighteen months."

"That's Santino."

"I assumed it wasn't the zoning fairy."

The junior was at his desk with his headphones on, pretending not to listen.

Tripod was asleep under the plan chest.

I put my bag down on the corner desk.

I took the cactus off it and set it on the windowsill.

Then I started taking my drawings off the wall.

Nathaniel watched me take down two before he spoke.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving. He'll stop when I'm gone. I'll find a desk somewhere he doesn't care about."

"There's nowhere in Chicago he doesn't care about."

"Then I'll go to Milwaukee."

"You hate Milwaukee."

"I've never been to Milwaukee."

"You'll hate it. It's very sincere." He came across the room and took the third drawing out of my hands. "Put that back."

"Nathaniel, it's a year of your life."

"It's a building. I'll fight for it. I've fought the city before. I once fought them for a month over a bike rack." He laid the drawing on my desk. "You're not leaving because a man made a phone call."

"He'll make more."

"Let him. I have a phone too. Mine's older and the screen is cracked, but it works."

"This isn't funny."

"No," he said. "It isn't."

He took his glasses off.

He never took his glasses off.

Without them his face looked younger and much more serious.

"Five years ago you walked into that firm and took my desk," he said. "I hated you for a month. Then I watched you draw a stair for a fire station, and I went home and couldn't sleep. Then you married him."

I didn't say anything.

"I went to your wedding," he said. "Back row. I left before the cake. I started my own studio the next spring because I couldn't sit on that floor anymore and look at your empty chair."

"You never said."

"You were married. I'm not that kind of man." He put his glasses back on. "But you're not married now. Not where it counts. And I'm not giving up the desk across from you because he wants to scare me."

"He could ruin you."

"He could try. I'm hard to ruin. I don't own anything nice."

I laughed.

It hurt, but I laughed.

He reached out and pulled the pencil out of my hair, the way he had on the roof.

"Stay," he said.

The junior took his headphones off, saw us, and put them straight back on.

At six Nathaniel locked the bakery door and turned off the drafting lamps one by one.

← Chapter 9 · All chapters · Chapter 11 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend