The New Hire Down the Hall Knew My Name Before HR Did novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Third Step
Kyle's POV
I forgot the third step.
It spoke under my boot, one dry crack in a dark house.
I stood on the stairs with my hand on the rail until I heard my father's snore go on across the hall.
I had stepped over that step every night for eighteen years.
I had not tried to be quiet in this house since I was seventeen.
My room was the one at the end of the hall, with the door shut.
I eased it open.
Renee was sitting on the edge of my twin bed in her sweater and her socks, with my mother's quilt over her knees.
My wrestling ribbons were pinned to the corkboard above her head, in rows, blue and red and a few white.
She was looking at the one from regionals.
The window behind her showed a field with no light in it, and the moon coming up over the stubble.
I shut the door as slowly as I could and turned the latch.
"You should have told me," she said, low.
"I know."
"A car, Kyle. A transfer. They were handing you a way out, and nobody on the floor would ever have known," she said.
"I know what it was."
"Then why?" she said.
"Because it didn't have you in it."
She looked up.
"I didn't want a car," I said, as quietly as the room allowed. "I wanted the hall. I wanted to come around the corner in the morning and see you at your desk. That's all I wanted."
"That's not a reason."
"It's the only one I've got."
I had practiced a better one for three weeks and it had gone out of my head.
She sat there with her mouth shut tight, and I saw her throat move.
Then she held out her hand.
I crossed the room in two steps.
She pulled me down by the front of my shirt and kissed me with her whole face.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The New Hire Down the Hall Knew My Name Before HR Did are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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