Ten Years of Public Breakups, Then He Ran After My Bus novel · Chapter 30 of 40
Chapter 30: Pine Tree Motor Lodge
Bernie's POV
The woman at the desk of the Pine Tree Motor Lodge took one look at us and slid a key across the counter without a word.
I was holding a duffel bag.
Eben was holding my hand and standing in a puddle of his own melted ice, in his oilskins, with his hair wild and his shirt buttoned wrong.
"Room nine," the woman said. "Checkout's eleven."
"We'll be gone by noon," I said.
"I'm sure you will, hon," she said, and went back to her crossword.
Room nine was at the end of the row.
It smelled of old carpet and pine cleaner.
It had a double bed, a flowered spread, a window with a thin curtain, and a radiator that clanked.
Through the glass, the winter sun was just coming up over the gas pumps, white and thin and gold.
He shut the door behind us.
We stood in the middle of the room.
"I don't know what to do with my hands," Eben said.
"I do."
"Tell me," he said.
"Put them on my face."
He did.
His palms were still cold from the road.
I closed my eyes, and he held my face between his big scarred hands, and his thumbs moved over my cheekbones.
"You came after me," I said.
"Yes."
"Say it again," I said.
"I came after you."
"You ran down Union Street," I said.
"I ran. And then I took Seventeen."
I laughed, and the laugh broke into something wet.
"Rule two," I said, through it. "Nothing in bed."
"Rule two expired in the Waldoboro lot."
"It was a good rule."
"It was a terrible rule," he said, and kissed me.
It was slow.
It was the slowest kiss of my life, with the whole morning in front of us, and nobody at the door.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–20 of Ten Years of Public Breakups, Then He Ran After My Bus are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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