I Paid My Grumpy Neighbor to Be My Fake Boyfriend, and He Took the Job Way Too Seriously novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: First Dance
My mother's hand slid off his arm.
"What?" she said.
"It wasn't in her car," Eli said. "I'm sorry. You should know that."
"Then where?"
He didn't answer.
He looked past her, at the potted tree.
At me.
My mother turned around.
I stepped out from behind the tree, which was a stupid place to be standing at my sister's wedding.
"Hana-ya?"
"After, Umma," I said. "Please. Not here."
She looked from me to Eli and back.
Then she looked across the deck, at Mina laughing with her bridesmaids in the sunset, the watch flashing on her wrist.
My mother didn't say anything else.
She picked up a glass of champagne from a passing tray.
She didn't drink it.
She just held it and walked away into the crowd.
All through dinner, she didn't say a word.
I watched her from table nine.
Mina hadn't changed the seating chart.
Table nine was at the very back of the tent, next to the speaker, with six of our cousins' kids, ages four to eleven.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Paid My Grumpy Neighbor to Be My Fake Boyfriend, and He Took the Job Way Too Seriously are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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