My Mate Didn't Want Me, So I Refused Him Louder novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Ten Minutes on the Ice

Linnea's POV

The note came under my door at half past eight.

Boathouse. Ten o'clock. Alone. I can't say it in the lodge. I'm sorry, Lin. I.

I read it standing at the window, with the lake black below me and the wind pulling the snow off the ice.

Every sense I had told me to stay in my room.

But I'd had a best friend for sixteen years, and I wanted to hear her say it to my face.

I went.

The boathouse stood at the end of a long dock, with its door hanging open and one lantern lit inside.

Ingrid sat on an upturned canoe with her braid over her shoulder and her cuff in her lap.

She didn't look hurt or frightened.

She looked tired, and almost relieved.

"You came," she said.

"Tell me."

"Close the door first. It's cold."

I left it open.

She shrugged and turned the cuff over in her hands.

"You want to know when I decided," she said. "It was the summer we were fourteen."

I said nothing.

"You'd just won the county spelling bee. Oda took you for ice cream. Everyone in the diner stood up to clap."

"I remember."

"I was holding your coat. And I thought, she gets the whole room without lifting a finger, and I'll spend my life holding her coat."

The lantern hissed.

"I made myself useful," Ingrid said. "I learned the calendar, and the guest list, and every elder's allergies. Nobody says thank you to the useful girl, Lin. They just ask for more."

"That's not a reason to drug a man."

"That was Gunnar's idea." She smiled a little. "He needed a Luna he could lean on. I needed to be somebody's first choice. It worked out."

"You bit him while he couldn't stand."

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