Page 264 of The Last Good Man

He wanted to buy it for me, and I loved it from the moment I laid my eyes on it.

It reminded me of that inn in Connecticut where we spent a night together.

The plot of land is sizable, and the property is very private, away from the main roads.

Nothing made me happier than finding out Alice and her husband had planned to buy a place nearby.

We are not far from Queens, where he moved his family into a bigger house, and not far from my sister, who I’m still trying to convince to move hereas well.

That night in Manhattan, Jax took over many things as I was finally comfortable delegating those things to someone else.

He talked to the landlord and convinced him nothing happened in my apartment.

Cops were never called, and Ellis Wilton had been removed from my place and, um… taken home? I think.

What Jax had told Wilton was anyone’s guess.

We had enough material to file charges and make noise in the media, but that wasn’t the best course of action.

I didn’t want that.

And Jax didn’t want to be part of an investigation either.

The good thing was no one liked Ellis Wilton.

Using his connections, Jax found out the cops knew about Ellis Wilton.

There had been complaints before.

So when, months later, he was beaten to a pulp in the back alley of a club, no one worked overtime to overzealously find the perpetrators.

To this day, I have no idea if that had anything to do with Jax and me.

We never discuss these things.

Not far down the road, his family had to file for bankruptcy, and Ellis Wiltonkind offell off the face of the earth.No tabloid was interested in his whereabouts once he could no longer supply juicy headlines.

And that was that.

My neighbor Marlowe did, in fact, move out soon after Jax put him in his place, and Thomas Everett is still dating.

And Emile, the Frenchman…I don’t know much about him.

Perhaps he’s never come back.

And I hope that woman, Joanna, has moved on.

Aretha Stenson is still very much booked, and every time I walk past her building, I look up. And if it’s a nice quiet evening and I notice the dim light in the main room, I see myself there—nervous, craving a cigarette, listless, and unable to find a man—my man.

A high-quality man, as she had said.

Eventually, I did find that man.

Or he’d found me.

He is everything Aretha Stenson told me a high-quality man would be.

He pays attention to me,makes sureI have everything I need, and has my back.

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