I Heard Dad's Friends Through the Wall, Now They Hear Me novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Lease

Boone didn't answer.

He looked past my father's shoulder at me.

I stepped between them.

"Dad, ask me."

"Di, get inside."

"No." My voice cracked, and I made it steady. "You asked how long. It's two weeks. It started in this house, and nobody forced me. I walked into your den and asked for it."

My father stared at me.

"Boone, too?"

"Boone, too," I said. "And Dex. And Emmett."

"All three."

"All three."

He took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"They're twice your age."

"Boone is forty-nine. Emmett is forty-one. I'm twenty-seven and I pay my own taxes."

"Gil," Boone said quietly. "It's on me. I'm the oldest. I should have gone to you first."

"You think I want to hear from you right now?"

Boone shut his mouth.

My father looked at the half-built steps, the hammer on the rail, the man he had known since they were nineteen.

Then he looked at me, and what was in his face was not rage.

It was worse.

He looked lost.

"Boone," he said. "Go home."

"Gil."

"Go home. Your boiler's fixed. I called the plumber myself on Tuesday."

Boone picked up his jacket.

He went down the steps he'd rebuilt, one at a time, and he did not look back.

My father went inside.

"Dad."

"Not today, Di." He stopped in the hall with his back to me. "I can't talk to you today."

The den door closed.

I stood in the hall with the grocery bag still on my arm.

Then I went to my room and started putting my clothes into trash bags.

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