He Priced Me At A Penny So I Married Another Chapter 03
I grabbed the megaphone hanging from Tori’s chest.
She reached for it, and a burst of sharp feedback drowned out the murmuring.
“Derek took the money, and he’s the one who agreed to this. If you have questions, ask him. I’ve already broken up with him.”
The smile vanished from Derek’s face.
“That’s enough, Lydia. She’s not actually going to lock you up. Do you have to humiliate her in public?”
I shoved the megaphone back into Tori’s arms and headed for the west gate.
The woman grabbed Derek’s jacket, demanding her money back. Tori rushed to explain. Even after I was a good distance away, I could still hear her shouting that I was the one embarrassing everyone.
The moving truck was already there. The driver started complaining the second he saw me.
“So who exactly is the customer here? Someone else just called and told me to open the bags and spread the quilts on the grass.”
Mrs. Hale walked over and helped me steady the dust bags beside the truck.
“Lydia signed the contract. You listen to her.”
I asked the driver to open the truck so I could check whether the bags had gotten dirty.
One corner of the outermost quilt was showing—the pale yellow cotton my mother had bought.
She believed wedding quilts should be bright and festive. This was the only color I liked, and it had taken me a long time to persuade her. Afterward, every time she took it out, she would say that no one else’s newlywed bedroom would be decorated in such a plain color.
And yet this was the one with the finest stitches.
Just as my fingers touched the corner, a warmth finally spreading through them, Tori came running up.
“You really do treat it like treasure. Derek, she’s already handing her things over to Mrs. Hale.”
Derek came up with his friends and blocked the driver.
“Unload them. Let the woman have a look. We don’t want her going home saying we tricked her with defective goods.”
I pressed a hand to the opening of the bag.
“Drive back to the warehouse. I’ll pay for storage and give you a new address in Boston. You only listen to me.”
The driver took a step back, but Tori had already pulled the corner of the quilt out through the opening.
My mother’s embroidered words were right there in her hand.
“No wonder you won’t let go. It has a whole sentence stitched on it. That’ll be awkward in someone else’s house. Just take it out.”
She took a small pair of box-cutter scissors from her purse.
I lunged and grabbed her hand. Derek immediately caught my wrist and yanked me backward.
“She’s helping you. Why are you getting physical?”
The scissors sliced across the fabric.
My name split down the middle. The cotton batting underneath showed through the broken seam.
Mrs. Hale shoved Derek away. The driver squeezed in and snatched the scissors from Tori.
Tori ducked behind Derek, holding up the hand I’d gripped, red where my fingers had been.
“She jumped at me out of nowhere. It scared me, and that’s why the scissors slipped.”
I clutched the torn corner of the quilt, my fingers trying to stuff the cotton back inside.
The harder my hands shook, the wider the tear opened.
By the time my mother reached this corner, she had already been in terrible shape. A few of the letters came out crooked. I’d told her she could take them out and do them again, but she was afraid I would dislike them. She immediately hid the corner behind her back and insisted she could fix it herself.
Now those crooked letters were broken beneath my fingertips. If I touched them again, the rest of the thread would come loose.
“My mom sewed this…”
A draft slipped through the tear. I clutched the fabric, the pain in my chest so sharp it bent me in half.
Derek reached out, trying to take the quilt from me.
“Let Tori mend it tomorrow. It’s not a big deal. If your mother were still here, she wouldn’t pick a fight with a young girl over a quilt.”
I shoved him hard and stuffed the quilt back into the bag.
Mrs. Hale steadied me with one hand on my shoulder and gestured to the driver.
“Load it up and take it to your warehouse for now. My son will cover the cost.”
I wiped away my tears and handed the driver the credit card I’d originally planned to use for the move.
“I’ll pay.”
Derek looked at me, the expression he’d been wearing while waiting for my reaction finally dropping.
“Lydia, you’d better think this through. If you leave with someone else today, the next time you walk into my house, you’ll have to accept the rules Tori teaches you.”
Tori leaned out from behind him, her phone aimed at me.
“Rule number one: she needs to learn to respect me. In Derek’s life, I always come first.”