My Childhood Friend Fired Me for His Girlfriend. I Took My Millions With Me! novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Sunroom

At June's bedside Jessamine learns June once warned Keaton never to send her away. Keaton and Sienna arrive with a release to sign, and June, suddenly clear, tells Jessamine not to sell to the man in the grey coat.

The care home had a rule that visitors signed in.

The pen on the front desk still had my name taped to it.

"She's in the sunroom," the nurse said. "She wouldn't let us move her."

June Hallam sat in the corner by the window in her lemon-colored cardigan.

Her silver braid lay over one shoulder, and an untouched tray sat on her knees.

She was sixty-one. She looked seventy, except on the days she looked forty.

"There she is," June said, and held out both hands.

I sat on the footstool and took them.

They were cold.

"You've missed lunch," I said.

"It was grey." June frowned at the tray. "They keep giving me grey food. Did you bring the bars?"

I opened the blue cooler and handed her a lemon bar in a napkin.

She bit into it with her eyes closed.

"Your mother used to put too much zest in these," she said. "I told her. She never listened."

"My mother taught me the recipe, June."

"Well, she was wrong."

She ate the rest of it in three bites.

The nurse told me later it was more than June had eaten all week.

I was fishing for a second napkin when June's face changed.

It happened sometimes.

The fog moved off her eyes, and the woman who had run a hardware store for thirty years looked out.

"Did he send you away?" she said.

I went still.

"Did Keaton send you away from that building?"

"Yes," I said. "This morning."

"I told him." June's hand tightened on mine. "I told that boy you were never to be sent anywhere."

"When did you tell him?"

"When he was twenty-two and signing things." She shook her head. "He didn't read the page. He never reads the page."

"What page, June?"

But the fog was creeping back.

Her eyes slid to the tray.

"These grey peas," she said sadly.

I stayed another half hour, and she ate the peas.

When I stood to stretch my back, I put my hand in my cardigan pocket and found Emmett Stroud's card.

I hadn't meant to keep it.

I turned it over once and put it back.

Voices came down the hall.

I heard Sienna first.

"Hi, it's Sienna again, I'm so sorry we're late."

Again.

The nurse at the sunroom door said hello back, and used her first name.

Keaton walked in behind her with a bunch of grocery-store tulips and a manila folder under his arm.

He stopped when he saw me.

"Tess," he said. "You came."

"She wasn't eating," I said. "You didn't answer your phone."

"I was in meetings." He looked at the floor. "We were coming anyway."

"When did you last come?"

He didn't answer that.

Sienna did.

"I've been dropping by," she said gently. "It's been hard for him, Tess. He can't see her like this."

June had gone quiet.

She was looking at the tulips with polite interest.

"Mom," Keaton said. His voice cracked. "It's me. It's Keaton."

He crouched in front of her chair.

June examined him.

"Are you the man about the electricity?" she asked.

Keaton's face folded in on itself.

Sienna put her hand on the back of his neck.

I watched her do it, and I thought: she isn't faking that. She loves him.

That was almost worse.

"I have a document for you," Keaton said, standing up.

He didn't look at his mother again.

"It's a release. It just says your grant isn't contested, so we can close with Stroud cleanly. Everyone wins."

He held out the folder.

"You told me the grant was a placeholder," I said.

"I was angry. I'd had a bad week."

"I'm not signing a release in my fired week, Keaton."

"Tess, think about June," Sienna said softly. "Her care is paid through the company. If the sale falls apart, that's at risk."

It was kind, and it was reasonable, and it was a very quiet threat.

The nurse by the door had stopped pretending not to listen.

"Who pays her care?" I said.

"The company," Keaton said. "I do."

"Since when?"

"Since always."

I looked at him, and he looked away first.

"Tessie." June's hand came up and caught my sleeve, hard.

Her eyes had cleared again, all the way, and they weren't on her son.

They were on me.

"Tess, listen to me," she said, loud enough for the whole sunroom. "Whatever he offers you. Don't you sell it to the man in the grey coat."

Keaton's head turned, and Sienna's turned with it.

I hadn't told June about Emmett.

I hadn't told anyone but Heidi.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

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