Now I Watch Her Love Him novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Dinner for Four

The man on the ladder took the bracket out of his teeth.

"Evening," he said.

He was big, with close-cut brown hair and forearms covered in old white scars from tools.

He did not smile and he did not scowl.

He came down the ladder one rung at a time and put the drill on the counter.

"Dylan, this is Jonas Keller," Hannah said. "Jonas, my husband."

She said the last word flatly, with no weight on it.

Jonas wiped his palm on his jeans and held out his hand.

I shook it.

His grip was dry and exact, and he let go first.

"He built the bench," Hannah said.

"What bench?"

"The one at St. Elizabeth's. In the garden behind the maternity wing."

I had walked past that garden twice in my life.

Both times I had been looking at my phone.

"I didn't know you went there," I said.

"Thursdays," Hannah said. "For a while now."

Thursdays.

I thought of the Thursdays I had been sitting in a parked car behind the Rosemont, and my stomach turned over.

The front door banged open.

"I let myself in," Beth said. "The spare key still works, I see."

She came into the kitchen carrying a foil tray and wearing scrubs under a puffy coat.

She looked at me for a full second and then looked away.

"Hi, asshole," she said.

"Beth," Hannah said.

"What? I said hi."

"You said hi, asshole."

"Both of those are greetings."

Jonas made a small noise that might have been a laugh and turned it into a cough.

Beth set the tray down and gave him a long look.

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