My Husband's Smart House Only Listens to Her novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Business Only

Brogan's workshop was a rented garage behind a yellow house in Cottage Grove, with a single bulb over the door.

Colleen parked at the curb and turned off the engine.

"I'll be right here," she said. "Text me every hour. If you don't, I'm coming in with the tire iron."

"He's not dangerous."

"Neither was Neil," she said.

Brogan opened the side door before I knocked.

He stood in the light with a coffee can of screws in his hand, still in his canvas jacket.

"Come in."

Inside, it smelled like solder and hot dust.

Three long benches ran down the walls, covered in circuit boards, coiled wire and half-built panels with little green lights.

A space heater glowed in the corner.

At the back, a wooden staircase went up to a loft with a sloped ceiling and a lamp on.

"Sit," he said. "Coffee?"

"I don't want coffee. I want to know why you're helping me."

He set the coffee can down.

"Because the part of that house that listens is mine," he said. "I wrote the first version of it at twenty-nine, in my mother's garage, so my father's hands would stop shaking when he tried to turn on a lamp."

"Your father."

"He had Parkinson's. It was supposed to help people like him. Neil turned it into something else."

"Into what?"

"I don't know yet. That's why I'm here."

I stood up from the stool.

I couldn't sit still, and my hands wouldn't stay in my pockets.

"Your brother had the police at his mother's table today," I said. "He called them on me while I was eating pie."

← Chapter 6 · All chapters · Chapter 8 →

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