I Paid My Grumpy Neighbor to Be My Fake Boyfriend, and He Took the Job Way Too Seriously novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Brunch
I held the phone up so Eli could read it.
He read it twice.
"She doesn't have my mother's number," he said.
"She has the caterer's number."
He sat very still on the bench.
"It's the same number," he said. "My mom never changed it."
Jae came back for us at nine with two coffees and a bag of gas station donuts.
He didn't say a word about the bench.
He just grinned at the windshield the whole way home.
At ten-fifty Eli stood in my old room in his last clean shirt, doing up the buttons wrong.
I fixed them.
His hands were shaking.
I'd never seen his hands shake, not on the ladder, not at the toast.
"She hasn't been to this house in six years," he said.
"I know."
"She drove past it once. On the way to somewhere. She pulled over and cried."
I did the top button.
"Then we'll stand next to her," I said.
Brunch was on the deck.
My mother had set one long table with the good linen, and she'd done it herself.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Paid My Grumpy Neighbor to Be My Fake Boyfriend, and He Took the Job Way Too Seriously are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 19 · All chapters · Chapter 21 →
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