The One He Never Held novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Not Grocery Lists

Jo's POV

The bell rang, and I knew who it was before I turned around.

Damian stood on the mat with rain on his shoulders and his bandaged hand in his pocket.

"Can I talk to you?" he said. "Not in front of anyone."

It was six, and the last customers were packing up their laptops.

"Give me twenty minutes," I said.

Tim flipped the sign to Closed without being asked and wiped his hands on his apron.

Then he went out the back door and didn't say where.

The café emptied. I turned off the espresso machine and the room went quiet.

Damian sat down at the table by the window, the one with the wobbly leg.

I brought two mugs of tea and sat across from him.

"I'm asking you once," he said, and turned his mug a quarter turn. "What do you write in your notebook?"

My hand stayed around my mug. I made it stay.

"Lists."

"Jo." He said it softly. "I'm not going to take it from your bag. I could have. I'm asking you."

The rain hissed on the window glass.

I thought of the page with Hailey's driver on it.

I thought of the first page, four years old, in my own handwriting.

If I told him now, I would lose the one thing that mattered before it was finished.

"It's mostly lists," I said. "Groceries. What Hailey eats and what she can't. Her appointments."

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