He Left Me Broken, Now He Wants Me Back novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Code

Jo packs her things from Graham's condo on crutches. Daphne arrives with lasagna and the door code, Graham tries to keep her, and Jo leaves for a studio he doesn't know she kept, where Arthur is waiting on her couch.

Bea Donnelly drove me out of Northgate on Friday afternoon with my crutches across the back seat and my duffel on my lap.

"Condo first," I said. "Then I'll tell you where."

"Jo, I have been waiting two years to be asked to help you move out of that man's building."

"You were asked at the red light."

"I'm savoring it."

Bea is a physical therapist, short and strong.

She carried my boxes from the car to the elevator in two trips while I held the door.

Graham had a shift until seven. I had planned the hour around it.

I swung into his condo on my crutches, and it smelled the way it always did, like cedar soap and the coffee he never finished.

I had lived there fourteen months, and in the closet my things took up one-third of one rod.

Bea held the boxes. I filled them.

Sweaters, my tax binders, my mother's blue bowl from the kitchen shelf.

The framed print of the lake I'd bought at a street fair, which he had moved to the hallway.

I left the watch on his dresser. It was in its original box, and I had put the receipt under it.

I was folding my last sweatshirt when the lock on the front door beeped.

Somebody had punched the code in without stopping to think about it.

"Gray? I brought dinner. I know you're on days this week."

Daphne Roarke came in carrying a foil pan with a lid that had a big G written on it in marker.

She was tall and fair, in a pale wrap dress and flat shoes, her hair in a loose knot.

She saw me, saw Bea, saw the boxes, and her face fell.

"Oh, Jo," she said. "Oh, you poor thing. I'm so sorry. He told me about your leg and I've been sick about it all week."

She set the pan on the counter and crossed the room with her arms open.

I let her hug me because I couldn't see how not to.

She smelled like vanilla. She was shaking a little.

"I wanted to come see you at Northgate and I didn't dare," she said.

"I thought you'd think I was horrible. You got hurt the night of my gala. I'll never forgive myself."

"It's fine," I said.

"It isn't. Can I carry something? Please. Let me do something."

She picked up the box with the blue bowl in it before I could answer.

I watched her stack it by the door next to the others.

Bea looked at me over Daphne's shoulder and didn't say a word, which for Bea took effort.

"You're leaving him," Daphne said softly.

"I'm moving out."

"Of course. You need space. He'll be devastated, you know."

She meant it kindly. I could hear that she meant it kindly.

Then the lock beeped again.

Graham stopped in the doorway with his bag over his shoulder and looked at the boxes, and the pan, and the three of us.

His face went through three expressions and settled on the one I'd seen in the ward.

"What is this?"

"Jo's collecting her things," Daphne said quickly. "I only came to drop off dinner, Gray. I'll go."

"You don't have to go," he said, without looking at her.

He was looking at me.

"You came here on crutches to do this behind my back."

"It's my stuff," I said. "You were at work."

"You told me yesterday you were done. I thought that was a mood."

He set the bag down.

"Where will you even go? You have nowhere."

I had picked up my crutches. I wasn't going to answer him.

He moved to the door before I reached it and put his hand flat against the frame above my head.

He was close enough that I could smell the cedar soap on his collar.

My stomach turned over with a wanting I had not given permission.

"Joanna," he said, much lower. "You'll be back by Saturday. You always are."

I looked at his hand and not his face.

"Move it."

He didn't.

"Dr. Ellery," Bea said pleasantly from behind me, "I lift heavy patients all day. Want to find out what I do with a door?"

He took his hand off the frame.

Behind him in the kitchen, Daphne stood with her fingers pressed to her mouth.

The elevator doors closed on the three of us and on a clean strip of floor where my boxes had been.

"Where?" Bea asked in the car.

I gave her an address on Damen Avenue.

"That's a laundromat."

"The unit above it is mine."

She stared at me.

"I've paid that lease every month since I moved in with him," I said.

"I told myself it was for storage."

"Jo Costigan. You absolute genius."

We carried the boxes up the narrow stairs together, and I unlocked the door I hadn't touched in fourteen months.

The lamp by the window was on.

Arthur Dunleavy sat on my old couch with his walker beside him and a thick folder open on his knee.

I had given him a spare key at my grandmother's funeral and never asked for it back.

"There you are," he said. "Sit down, Madam Chair. We have until tomorrow night."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend