She Jumped Into His Pool and Blamed Me, So I Left Him novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Dock

At six in the morning I called the Portland clinic and got a recording.

At seven a text came in from Mitchell.

Pack. He read your email. He knows where you live, and he'll be at your door by lunch.

I didn't ask how Mitchell knew.

By nine Phoebe had gone to stay with a coworker in Astoria, with her knives in a roll under her arm.

By noon I was in the boathouse again, with a bag at the foot of the narrow bed.

Mitchell waited on the dock with his boots off and his feet in the water.

I walked out and sat next to him.

The bay was flat and bright, and a sailboat leaned far out on the horizon.

"Terms," he said.

"I didn't know we had terms."

"You stay until the benefit. You eat what's in the fridge, you pay for nothing, and you keep that drive on you." He kept his eyes on the water. "Rule one, no touching."

I looked at him.

"That's a rule?"

"After the truck, it is."

"I told you not to flatter yourself." I said it quietly, but it came out sharp. "You wrote the rule anyway."

"Rule two. We don't talk about Bennett after dark. If you want to say his name at night, say it to Phoebe."

"That seems like a lot of rules for a man who doesn't talk."

"I like rules."

I pulled my knees up and rested my chin on them.

The wood under me was warm.

I hadn't known I was angry until I started to say it.

"You told me to leave before dessert," I said.

"Yes."

"Ninety people stood there and looked at me. Your mother offered me fifty thousand dollars to shut up. You'd been on that dock the whole time with a camera, and when I came out you handed me my bag and told me to go home."

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