Four Hundred Guests Watched Him Cheat, So I Took Everything He Had novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Sticker
By ten that night my mother had taken over the couch.
"I'm done sleeping in a stranger's bed," Ellen said. "It's a perfectly good bed. Use it."
"Mom."
"I'm fifty-five and I can count. Good night, Margo."
She pulled the blanket over her shoulders and turned her face to the cushions.
Hoyt stood in the middle of the living room with a pillow in his hands, and he looked very worried.
"She just sent us to bed," I said.
"I heard."
"In your house."
"I'd like it noted that I did not arrange this."
I took the pillow out of his hands and walked to the bedroom.
He followed me in and closed the door very softly.
The room was small, with a wide bed, a lamp, and a bookshelf of old camera manuals.
On the dresser sat a worn black tablet in a rubber case, with a sticker on the corner.
I picked it up.
The sticker was a yellow smiley with a crooked mouth, and under it, in blue marker, someone had written: Mom's. Don't lose it. Love, M.
The handwriting was mine.
"I gave her this tablet in her hospital room last winter," I said. "I stuck that on it myself."
"I know."
"That's the tablet she watched my wedding on."
"The first day I set it up," Hoyt said, "she held it against her chest for a full minute. Then she turned it around and showed me the sticker. She said, 'My daughter wrote this. She tells me what to do, and I let her.'"
I put the tablet down very carefully.
"I was angry at you for a week," I said. "I'm still not finished."
"I know that, too."
"But I'd like to be angry on a bed."
He smiled slowly, and it went all the way up his face.
"Come here," he said.
I went.
He took my face in his hands and kissed me, deep and unhurried, and I felt the fight go out of my shoulders.
Keep reading free with an account. Start Four Hundred Guests Watched Him Cheat, So I Took Everything He Had from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →
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