Home / Keep It After Midnight / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of Keep It After Midnight: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

Laughter erupted around the table. Someone slapped a hand against it and shouted, "Tessa, you're really going there this year?" Another guest already had a phone out, the camera trained on us.For the first time, I stopped playing along.Xavier Dalton had been peeling shrimp for me, but his fingers went still halfway through, as though even he hadn't expected Tessa Mercer to choose him.She rested her chin on one hand and winked at me. "It's only twenty-four hours. You never had a problem lending me your camera or your car."I slid the plate of shrimp back in front of Xavier and met her eyes. "No."The room went quiet so fast it was almost jarring.Tessa paused, then smiled again. "Getting possessive?""He's a person, not something for you to play with." My voice came out sharper than before.Instead of answering me, she looked past me at Xavier. "What if Xavier's willing?"My heart sank.He didn't laugh it off or tell her she was being ridiculous. He simply pulled out a wet napkin, w

Chapter 2

Darkness had settled over the city again by the time I finally heard the lock turn.Xavier walked in wearing a crisp shirt, his hair still damp and a strong perfume clinging to him.I stared at him.He rubbed the tip of his nose. "Still mad?"Before I could answer, Tessa peeked around him with a smile."Special delivery~."She smiled as she held out her hand. A wedding ring lay in her palm."Almost forgot. This needs to be returned too."Something exploded in my head.I picked up the ring and turned it between my fingers. Our initials were engraved inside, and there was still a tiny nick along the edge from where it had gotten knocked against something last year."Why did you take it off?"Xavier swallowed.Tessa leaned against the doorframe and answered for him. "It got in the way."My hand flew up.The slap cracked across Xavier's face, turning his head to the side. Tessa went rigid.My palm burned and tingled, but somehow the pain made everything suddenly clear, as though I'd finall

Chapter 3

Xavier's expression changed, and he instinctively took a step toward Tessa. My heart sank with the movement, but before he reached her, he stopped himself.By then, cold sweat had broken out across Tessa's forehead. She slid down the doorframe into a crouch, her face drained of color.Xavier tightened his grip on his phone and called an ambulance. "Don't move. They'll be here soon."Tessa looked up at him. "What about you? You're not coming with me?"He hesitated, then looked past her at me."The doctors will take care of you."The paramedics arrived soon after and took Tessa away. Once the elevator doors closed behind them, Xavier turned back to me, his eyes fixed on my face.I gripped the edge of the table for support. "What did she mean?"His throat worked. "Yvonne.""I don't want to hear my name coming from your mouth." My voice came out tight. "Before she asked to borrow you at the party, did you already know?"He didn't answer right away, but the night before was already replayin

Chapter 4

My vision went dark for a second."After that, we'd both had too much to drink. She kept using you to get under my skin, and I got worked up. I never thought things would go that far." Xavier's voice dropped lower with every word. "Yvonne, I know being drunk doesn't excuse what I did."The tears spilled over before I could stop them."So you finally understand that now?"He went still.I wiped my face, though my fingers were shaking badly. "I couldn't bear to let you go. When she asked for you, that was the first time in twenty years I'd ever refused her, because I couldn't bear to give you up."Every trace of color left Xavier's face. He stood there as if the words had pinned him in place, his eyes slowly reddening."When you said no that night, I should've stayed."Somehow, hearing him admit it only made the pressure in my chest worse.I turned to the drawer, took out a set of papers, and laid them on the table. I'd already smoothed every page flat and clipped a pen to the top.Xavie

Chapter 5

The train pulled in just after dawn.My aunt, Linda Brooks, was waiting outside the station and spotted me immediately. She didn't ask questions. She simply took my suitcase, brushed her fingers over my swollen eyelids, and said, "Let's go home."That was all it took.My nose burned, and by the time we reached her place, I was barely holding myself together. She brought me a bowl of hot oatmeal, but before I'd even swallowed the first bite, tears were already splashing into it. I ducked my head and cried so hard my shoulders wouldn't stop shaking.When I finally turned my phone back on, it wouldn't stop buzzing.There were more than forty missed calls.Every one of them was from Xavier.His messages had started out angry, then gradually changed.[Where are you?][Yvonne Carter, answer your phone.]Farther down was a photo of the Borrowing Ledger.[What do you mean, "rejected"?]A little later, another message appeared.[Yvonne, don't scare me like this.]My finger hovered over the scr

Chapter 6

He had deleted their messages, blocked her number, and boxed up everything she'd left at the house."She won't be part of my life anymore."My heart still ached.Five years of marriage didn't disappear just because I wanted them to. But the ache had barely surfaced before I remembered sitting by the front door, watching him walk away from me again and again to go after Tessa."And then what?"Xavier stared at me. "What?""You cut her off, so now I'm supposed to come home?"The color slowly drained from his face."Yvonne, I'm trying to fix this.""You're fixing your relationship with her." I held his bloodshot gaze. "She's not what I don't want anymore. You are."He looked as if I'd hit him."Don't say that."He reached for me, but I stepped aside."Even now, you still think this is about Tessa and me fighting over you."His lips trembled. "I don't.""Then why was getting rid of her the first thing you told me?"Someone passed through the hallway and glanced curiously in our direction.

Chapter 7

Tears spilled down Tessa's face, but she was still smiling."Do you have any idea how disgusting that feels?"I stared at her.She stepped closer. "Like you have so much that losing one thing here or there means nothing. Everything I ever took from you felt like a handout."Anger flared through me."You didn't have to take any of it."Tessa went still."You picked the dress. You asked to borrow the camera. You were the one who kept wearing the bracelet and never gave it back. I never forced any of those things on you."Her expression tightened. "So you think you did nothing wrong?""I spent years worrying you'd take things the wrong way, so whenever you wanted something, I gave in." My grip tightened around the plastic bag until my nails bit into my palm through the thin material. "Looking back, all I did was keep letting you get away with it."Her breath caught.Then she laughed."What about Xavier? Did I force him too?"My fingers went cold.Tessa wiped away her tears. "At first, I h

Chapter 8

I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, but a sharp breath still slipped out.A note slid from the bottom of the velvet box.[I got all of it back.]Six words. That was all.I stared at the scrap of paper until tears blurred my vision and began spilling down my face.Aunt Linda sighed and crouched beside me. "If you need to cry, cry."I closed my hand around the bracelet."I just miss my mom."One by one, I unpacked the rest of the boxes. Some of the things inside were so old I'd almost forgotten about them.Apparently, all those years I'd said I didn't care, some part of me had remembered anyway.My phone buzzed.Xavier had sent another message.[There are still a few things I haven't found. I'll keep looking.]I stared at it for a moment before replying.[I'll keep the bracelet. Take everything else back.]He called almost immediately.I hesitated, then answered."Why?" His voice was hoarse.I looked at the old belongings scattered across the floor."Because the bracelet is the on

Chapter 9

I placed the bracelet back in the velvet box."Thank you."Xavier didn't close the lid. After a moment, he asked, "Then why are you still looking at me like that?"My nose stung."Because the bead my mother touched is gone. You could find a hundred more exactly like it, and none of them would be that one."His grip tightened around the box, his eyes slowly reddening."Are we still talking about the bracelet?"I said nothing.His breathing grew uneven. "Yvonne, Tessa is out of my life. I haven't seen her. I haven't answered her calls.""I know.""Then why isn't it enough?" His voice strained. "I admitted I was wrong. I'm changing. I'm trying to fix everything I still can."It hurt to look at him."Xavier, you're doing all of this now because you can't accept that I don't want you anymore."He went still."But I already went through the pain when all of this happened."I took the bracelet back out of the box and closed my hand around it."You can take the box."He stayed where he was as

Chapter 10

The two initials engraved inside the band caught my eye, and my chest tightened."Keep it."Xavier's fingers closed around the ring. "You used to go looking for it if you went even one day without wearing it."I looked away. "I don't need to anymore. I tried to stop you, and I told you what would happen. Every time, you still left me waiting for you to come back."The tears he'd been holding back finally fell. He scrubbed them away with one hand, but his shoulders slowly sagged.I looked down at the divorce papers in my hand.Somehow, I found myself thinking about the photo from the day we got married. Xavier had leaned so close against me that the clerk told him to sit up straight, but under the desk, he'd still hooked a finger around mine.I folded the papers closed."Yvonne."His voice followed me, raw and bitter.I didn't stop....A year later, I spent my birthday without Tessa for the first time.Aunt Linda had ordered a cake, and my friends had taken over the living room, leavin

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP