They Planned A Party In My Home Without Me Chapter 06

They Planned A Party In My Home Without Me Chapter 06

The day after I arrived in Riverton, Ethan called me from eight different numbers.

When I finally answered the last one, the first thing he asked was:

“Where are you staying?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Lena, don’t argue with me. Give me your address. I’ll come get you.”

I was filling out my new-hire paperwork at the new office, with people waiting behind me.

“So I can come back and cook for you?”

Ethan had no answer.

After a few seconds, he lowered his voice.

>

“We were wrong yesterday.”

“But you moved out without saying a word. What was the point of that?”

“I did say something.”

“When?”

“When you were standing in my apartment, getting ready to send me off to work.”

He immediately argued back:

“Who sent you away? Ryan didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Then what about our future home?”

There was another silence on the line.

I didn’t wait for him to explain.

“Ethan, I didn’t leave because of one dinner.”

“And don’t apologize to me as if one dinner is all this was.”

I hung up and entered my new number into my employee profile.

Messages from the three guys hit my inbox one after another.

Ryan wrote a long message saying he’d only been worried about making things awkward.

Tyler said that twenty years of friendship shouldn’t fall apart over one joke.

Ethan was the most direct.

[Come back before the holiday weekend is over.]

[I’ll make Mia move out of the place we were supposed to share.]

I deleted all of them.

On the third day, something went wrong at Ethan’s new place.

Mia didn’t dare touch the breaker, so she called him.

He was in a meeting and could only send Ryan over.

When Ryan arrived, he found that Mia had been running the electric kettle and hair dryer at the same time.

The breaker had tripped.

He couldn’t stop himself from complaining:

“You made me drive over for this?”

Mia’s face went red.

“Lena used to handle it. I don’t know how.”

That made Ryan freeze for a moment.

When we’d rented a place together near college, they called me whenever a pipe clogged, the internet went

down, or someone got sick.

Over time, they started believing I could handle anything.

They forgot that the first time I dealt with those things, no one had taught me either.

That night, Ethan told Mia to stay in a hotel for the time being.

She stood in the doorway without moving.

“Ethan, are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“Then why are you making me leave?”

“I’m not making you leave.”

Ethan rubbed his forehead.

This was supposed to be the place Lena and I would live after we got married.

Mia bit her lip.

“But you said we weren’t even close to getting married.”

Ethan went white.

Those had been words he’d said to me.

Hearing Mia repeat them made even him wince.