The Perfect Tenant by AJ Carter

Author:AJ Carter [Carter, AJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2023-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Her

Too much sympathy is offered at the school. All I wanted to do was drop Cody off and then head back home to get some work done. Instead, a whole bunch of mums and a couple of dads surround me before I can return to my car, checking up on me with a barrage of questions.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Who smashed your window?’

‘Is Cody really ready for school?’

‘Tell Max I said hello.’

I smile and nod as much as possible while I edge past them. It’s not that I don’t appreciate their concern, but I’m old enough to know when people are just digging for gossip. They won’t get it from me – I won’t give them the satisfaction – so I fight my way back to the car and then take a moment of peace before the key even goes into the ignition.

When I get back to our street, I slow the car to get a good look at my spare house. There’s no sign of Ellie whatsoever, but I don’t know what I expected to find. On the opposite side of the road, Max is leaning in to the bowels of an old Subaru, hard at work like he said he would be. I move on, park the car, then head over to check on him.

‘Keeping busy?’

Max shuffles back and pulls his head out from under the bonnet. He smiles when he sees me, looking at me like he hasn’t seen me in weeks. It sends a rivet of warmth right through me, so I move in and kiss him. He can’t touch my face because of the oil, but I enjoy the peck.

‘Thought you had work to do,’ he says.

‘I’ll get to it in a minute. Did you talk to Ellie?’

Max pauses, looks for a rag, then just wipes his hands on the old T-shirt he’s wearing. It’s seen better days anyway. ‘Yes and no.’ He folds his arms and leans on the lip of the car’s open bonnet. ‘Rather than outright evict her, I thought it might be good to encourage her to move on all by herself. Make it seem like a choice, you know?’

I must be looking at him like he stepped on my foot. ‘So she’s not moving?’

‘No idea. She might do.’

‘If she’s given the choice, she definitely won’t. Max!’

Irritation rattles through me and makes me scoff. I know it was unfair to put that task on him, but I honestly expected him to get the job done. At the very least, he could have dropped me a text to let me know. He knows I’ve been waiting around for a result.

‘Will you calm down?’ he asks. ‘I did the right thing.’

‘That wasn’t the right thing though. I want her out.’

‘Why don’t you give her the week and see if she leaves?’

‘Because I don’t have a week.’

The heat is rising, the tension even more so. Max’s cheeks are turning red, and the fed-up look on his face tells me I shouldn’t be pushing this. Maybe it was stupid of me to rely on him for this particular task.

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