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I take a few deep breaths. I may want to kill her right now, but she’s still the only family I have left. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to take her out of this world and leave myself alone. Yet.
“I’m going to need you to fix this,” I say. “Nolan isn’t the same guy I broke up with two years ago. He’s all over the media. Apparently, the nice, charming guy I knew is gone. Now he’s some kind of bad boy womanizer. It’s ridiculous, and I have absolutely zero interest in that kind of guy.”
“Bah. You can’t trust everything you see on the tube. Besides, what is there to fix? You should be thanking me. Look, Mia. I know some circles would call it taboo or dirty or what have you, but I’m willing to share him. If you want to have my sloppy seconds, he’s all yours. I’m in bed at 7PM sharp, anyway. Just send him to me for the first shift and you take the second. It’s really not that complicated, so calm your pretty little head down and enjoy this.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Grams. Serious talk, please.”
There’s a pause. “Have I ever steered you wrong, sweetie?”
A few dozen examples of her doing exactly that pop into my mind. “Yes,” I say flatly.
“Okay, but recently?” she asks.
“Yes?”
Another pause. “Well, don’t you trust your Grams?”
“No?”
She sighs. “Tough cookies, kid. I did a thing, and now we’re all going to have to deal with the consequences. Sometimes, that’s life. But I think you’ll thank me. Someday. Unless I die a horrible, sad, tragic death before you get the chance, I suppose. And then you’ll just have to spend the rest of your days thinking how you let your poor old Grams finally get axed by her enemies and you never forgave her. I imagine that would be quite the burden. Just something to think about, Dearie.”
I roll my eyes. “First of all, I really don’t think you’re going to get assassinated. And second, you wouldn’t need to be forgiven if you stopped doing insane things. Have you considered that?”
“If you don’t die by assassination, you’re not living hard enough. Put that shit on my gravestone.”
“So that’s it?” I ask. “You did a thing and that’s that? You really don’t have a backup plan? One of your other rentals I can use?”
“Nope. Gotta go, though. My wax machine just finished heating up. Gotta do a little landscaping, if you know what I mean. Toodles.”
She ends the call and I’m left on the porch, chewing my nails.
I storm inside and throw my hands up. “That’s it. This is officially a disaster. Grams isn’t changing the booking and I’ve got nowhere else to stay. I can’t imagine how this could get any worse.”
Caroline laughs in a way that makes me round on her, fists balled. “What?” I ask through my teeth. “What does that nervous little weasel laugh you just did mean?”
Andi bulges her eyes, then stares at the floor as if it might contain the secrets of life.
What do they know that they haven’t told me?
“Okay,” Caroline says, lifting her palms and speaking slowly. “You have to promise you won’t try to end my life before I agree to tell you this.”
“I don’t like to make promises I’m not sure I can keep,” I say.
Caroline and Andi exchange a look.
“Andi,” Caroline says. “Mind standing in front of that knife block and not letting Mia near it for me?”
Andi nods and rushes to the kitchen. I’m shifting my gaze between the two of them. What could they possibly be so worried about telling me? What could top the news that I’m going to have to figure out how to sort through this double booking mess with my ex, who has decided to turn into a raging playboy since we broke up?
“So,” Caroline says, taking a few steps back from me. “You know that awesome job opportunity I told you about? The new restaurant that’s opening here in your home town? The one that’s a perfect fit for the girl who just graduated culinary school and is the kind of thing you can’t pass up?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m aware of the thing I have spent weeks preparing for and is the reason I’m standing here in my Grams’ rental cabin.”
“Well,” Caroline says. “There’s a small detail I thought really wasn’t all that important. But I worried it would make you not want to come. Even though it’s really not a big deal. But, umm…”
I brace myself, because I know what I’m about to hear is not going to make me happy.
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