He Ranked Her First, I Chose Myself novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Rank Night Again
I stood behind the bar at four in the morning with brine running down my wrist.
I didn't open it.
I held it up to the light over the register and turned it, the way his mother had turned the other one at the boathouse.
Then I put it back in the bag.
I sealed it twice, the way he had.
I lowered it into the jar with the tongs, between two eggs, and screwed the lid down tight.
I went back up three flights in my socks and got under my mother's quilt.
Fitz rolled over and put his arm around me without waking up.
"Where'd you go?" he mumbled.
"Nowhere," I said. "Go to sleep."
I lay there smiling at the ceiling until the sun came up.
He was going to pick his moment.
I was going to let him.
Four months went by.
Thanksgiving at my mother's, where Fitz and she did jokes through two pies.
The clinic every Wednesday, seven to whenever.
In January, my mother texted me a photo from her bus route.
A billboard on a highway out past the Main Line.
Judson, in a quarter-zip, smiling all his teeth over the words CANTRELL INSURANCE. LET ME PROTECT WHAT MATTERS MOST.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of He Ranked Her First, I Chose Myself are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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