You Chose Another, Now Forget Me novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Second Place

Inés's POV

I told myself I'd said it all in the note.

I had said it at the studio, to the empty room, to the kettle and the lamp, and by the time I drove to Zapopan at six I could have said it in my sleep.

The house was a concrete shell with no windows yet.

The staircase stood in the middle of it, half built, a spine of raw steel and timber with nothing holding it up but its own drawings.

I had designed it with his hands in mind.

He came at seven exactly, with the roll of drawings under his arm.

He stopped at the bottom step, and the light from the street caught the stubble on his jaw.

He had not slept.

"I brought the stair," he said.

"Good."

"Only the stair."

"Put it on the sawhorse."

He laid the roll out across the planks and pinned the corners with four stones from the floor.

We stood on opposite sides of it.

For twenty minutes we talked about tread depth and the handrail, and he was brilliant, and I hated how brilliant.

Then he straightened up and looked at me over the paper.

"You left the box on the step."

"Yes."

"And a note."

"You read it."

"Eleven times."

I put my pencil down.

"All right," I said. "Here is the rest of it."

He waited.

"I have loved you since the second week of university. You were drawing a bridge on the back of a menu, and you let the waiter keep the tip because it was his idea to use the pepper pot."

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

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