He Locked Me Out Now He’s Begging Me Back Chapter 03
The yard went quiet for a few seconds.
The woman who had defended Tessa was the first to pick up her coat.
“We should get going. Family conflict happens. It’s better to talk it out behind closed doors.”
The others started gathering their plates, too.
“Right, just a family disagreement.”
“The kid’s tired. We’ll head out, too.”
They avoided looking at me as they left, but more than one person patted Tessa on the shoulder and quietly told her not to let it get to her.
As if she were the one who had been wronged.
Daniel caught up to me and grabbed my wrist.
“Claire, don’t do this. Go explain to them. Just say you got back from your trip and you’re tired.”
I shook him off.
Tessa immediately pulled Noah behind her and looked at me warily.
“Don’t get physical in front of the child.”
I hadn’t even touched her.
But the two neighbors who remained had already turned back to look.
Daniel rubbed his brow and forced a smile at them. “It’s fine. Really. Just a family disagreement.”
I looked at the yard, littered with paper plates, beer cans, and napkins trampled into the grass, and suddenly I didn’t have another word to say.
I turned and walked back to the ADU.
Behind me, I heard Tessa comforting Noah.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Mommy and I aren’t getting kicked out.”
I had just opened the small door when Daniel came after me.
“You were way out of line today.”
I turned. “I was out of line?”
“You had to confront Tessa in front of the entire neighborhood and make a scene. She just moved in. She needs to fit into the community. After what you just pulled, what are people supposed to think of her?”
“And did it ever occur to you what they think of me?”
Daniel paused.
I pointed at the main house.
“She stood in my living room hosting guests, using my silverware, and dragging my father’s bookshelf onto the lawn. And in front of everyone, you told them it was her home.”
“I’m a co-owner of this property, but I’m the one coming out of the backyard unit like some outsider showing up to cause trouble.”
“Now this whole street thinks I’m the cruel stepmother trying to throw out a single mother and her child.”
His expression stiffened for a moment before he lowered his voice.
“No one thinks that. You’re being too sensitive.”
“Didn’t you hear how they were comforting her?”
“That’s because of your tone,” he said. “If you’d just spoken calmly, none of this would have happened.”
Again.
My fault.
Not Tessa’s for throwing herself a party without asking. Not Daniel’s for publicly declaring that the house belonged to her.
No—my crime was refusing to smile and accept it.
“Get out.”
“Claire—”
“This is the place you assigned me.” I put my hand on the doorknob. “For now, at least let me decide who gets to come in.”
I shut the door, cutting off his voice.
The ADU was dark.
Boxes full of clothes and files blocked the side of the bed. Suitcases still stood beside the kitchen sink. The whole four-hundred-square-foot space was so crammed there was barely anywhere to put my feet.
Voices rose again from the main house.
Daniel had probably gone back to comfort Tessa.
Just then, my phone rang.
It was my friend, Marisol.
“So, you finally picked up.” Her voice was bright. “I saw your post. How’s your dad doing? When did you get back to Portland?”
“The day before yesterday.”
“So you’re already at the new house?”
She had known that after Daniel and I bought the place, I’d been planning to have her over. Then my father’s surgery happened, and I’d had to rush out of state, so the housewarming got pushed back.
“I figured you’d let me know as soon as you got home,” she said with a laugh. “So when’s the party? Don’t tell me you’re so busy settling in that you can’t even spare time for coffee.”
I leaned against the cold wall of the ADU.
Outside the window, Daniel and Tessa were folding up the tables together. Warm yellow light spilled from the main house behind them, their shadows cast against the curtains like a real family.
“Don’t come over anytime soon.”
Silence on the other end.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Claire, every time you say ‘nothing,’ it means something is very wrong.”
My eyes landed on the silverware set by the door.
The forks and knives had been tossed into a plastic bag without being cleaned. My father’s bookshelf still stood in the corner of the yard, the cracked shelf sagging inward.
“Did Daniel do something?”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know where to start.
With the failed fingerprint?
With the twenty-one-day guest access?
Or with the fact that my bedroom, my study, and my life had all been moved into this little box?
In the end, all I said was, “Marisol, just don’t come.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I looked at the bookshelf outside. “My house doesn’t even have my bookshelf in it anymore.”
There was a long silence.
She didn’t press.
“All right,” she said. “Get some rest.”
At nine o’clock Saturday morning, someone knocked on the ADU door.
I opened it to find Marisol standing there, holding two coffees in one hand and a toolbox in the other.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come?”
“And you said nothing was wrong.”
She looked past me into the cramped room.
Boxes were stacked all the way to the window. My desk chair was wedged against a folding table. Daniel’s golf clubs were shoved at the foot of the bed. Leaning against the wall was our wedding photo from the main house, its glass coated with dust.
The smile drained from Marisol’s face.
“Why are all your things in here?”
I didn’t answer.
She looked toward the main house. Through the kitchen window, Tessa was visible in her pajamas, pouring coffee while Noah ate breakfast at the counter. Daniel walked past behind her and closed a cabinet door without breaking stride.
The whole scene looked so natural, as if it happened every day.
Marisol looked down at the threshold at my feet, then over at the cracked bookshelf in the corner of the yard.
She set down the coffees and walked over, running her fingers along the broken shelf.
“Is this the one your dad made you?”
I nodded.
“Daniel moved her into the main house and shoved you into the ADU?”
“He said it was only for six weeks.”
“And six weeks required changing your curtains, taking over your study, and turning you into a guest?”
I looked up at her.
She straightened. There was no pity in her eyes.
Only clear, furious understanding.
“Claire, stop calling this a family disagreement.”
“He’s not just helping his daughter.”
“He’s using your house, your money, and everything you’ve done for him over the years to buy himself the identity of a good father.”