They Canceled My Ticket, I Canceled Them novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: A Report on the Dock

I woke at six in a bedroom with a lock on the door and a lake outside the window.

Wes had given me the main bedroom and taken the boathouse for himself.

I had slept eight hours straight, which had not happened since I was twenty-two.

In the kitchen the coffee was already made, and Lacey was standing beside the pot in one of my sweaters.

She had taken it out of my bag last night while I was in the shower.

"I hope you don't mind," she said. "I was cold."

"I mind."

She blinked.

It was the first time in ten years I'd answered that question with the truth.

She took the sweater off and folded it over a chair, and her eyes were wet.

"Okay. Can I tell you why I did it? Without you being cruel?"

"I'm not cruel. I'm asking you to say it plainly."

"Wes is the man who stood you up on this dock," Lacey said. "You cried for a month, Nor. You came to my room and I held your hair back. I was not going to watch him look at you across a dinner table like nothing happened."

I looked at her.

It was a good reason, and it was a kind one, and I wanted to believe it for a whole second.

"So you took my seat."

"I was protecting you."

"You could have said it."

"You'd have gone anyway. You always go."

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