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“This is all meant to be for us?” I asked.
She grinned at me while lifting her phone up to take a photo of the board from above. “No, I’m very aware of your eating habits, and though I’m happy to see they’ve gotten better in your time here, I don’t think we’ve changed what I’m guessing is years of habits in a week.” She tapped at her phone, no doubt adding filters and working her magic.
Harriet was, in fact, the bomb at Instagram. Her feed was full of earth-toned aesthetic shots of the ranch, of food, of her hands holding various drinks. Even some sneaky ones of the men in her family standing with their backs to the camera, the sun setting on the ranch.
I blinked at her response, at how astute she was and how little judgment there was in her tone. After the first night, no one had tried to push baked goods onto me and let me serve myself. Harriet was right, things had changed. Drastically, considering now I ate three meals a day when before I was lucky if I had one. I’d helped Anna cook most of them—well, tried to. After she saw the extent of how bad I was at cooking, she had decided we’d have weekly cooking lessons.
Duke hadn’t mentioned it either, and I knew that he’d noted it. He noted everything. It seemed such a fucking stupid thing to be obsessing about in the midst of all of this, but it was a big part of my life before. It was attached to my image, my worth, not something I could easily just shake.
I was proud of myself for smearing the bread with chutney then topping it with cheese.
Harriet grinned in approval.
“You make a good board, Harriet,” I said after swallowing.
She lifted her glass to clink with mine—another thing I loved about her, and the entire family in general, their healthy drinking habits. “I do, don’t I?”
We fell into silence for a beat, staring out at the view I’d never be able to get used to, and all things going well, I wouldn’t have time to get used to it.
One thing I had gotten used to was the fact that Harriet was rarely ever content in silence.
“Now, I am very interested about what your girlfriends think of Duke and how many you had to bitch-slap from stealing your man,” Harriet said. “And I know it sounds incredibly biased to think my grandson is sufficiently good-looking to have your friends try to steal him from you, but I also have eyes. And they show me he is a handsome man and no doubt in demand.”
I sipped my drink. “No doubt,” I agreed, thinking of all the woman in LA most likely waiting for his call. Or the girlfriend that I’d created in my mind. She was petite. Much shorter than him, even in heels. But she didn’t wear heels much. She went hiking. She was a kindergarten teacher, was close with her family, volunteered at soup kitchens, had plenty of girlfriends she could have book clubs or movie nights with or pretty much whatever women did when they hung out with each other.
“Am I wrong?” Harriet asked in response to my brooding silence.
I glanced up to her. “No, I don’t think you’re wrong. If I had girlfriends, single or married, with half a brain and a functioning libido, they’d be going to war with me for Duke.”
Harriet raised her brow. “If? You don’t have girlfriends back home? But I’ve seen you with all sorts of people on Instagram. You were at a Kardashian’s party not long ago.”
I smiled. You couldn’t help but do so around Harriet, especially when it became clear the eighty-year-old was addicted to social media and was more well-informed on popular culture than your average millennial.
“Of course I go to parties,” I replied. “I pose for photos. I play the game.” I paused, looking out for a beat before meeting her eyes. I could totally lie, could say that I was tight with all the Jenners and Kardashians alike. But not under this Montana sky, not under her sharp gaze. “But the only true friend I have is my publicist and the only reason he wouldn’t scratch my face off for his chance at Duke would be because it would make his life that much harder having to deal with the fallout of doing such a thing.” A strong pang went through my gut thinking of Andre. It was a strange feeling. Unfamiliar. I missed him.
I hadn’t realized that he was the first person I spoke to in the morning and usually the last person I spoke to in the evening too. It had only been two weeks here, but it was the longest in a decade that I’d gone without speaking to him.
