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“It’s really for real?” I asked Ben. “The dead grandfather, the whole thing? It isn’t going to just disappear?”
Ben ate some more tofu. “The grandfather is definitely dead,” he said, “and his money is definitely Devon’s. Except for Cavan, assuming Cavan is still alive, there’s no one else with a claim. It’s one hundred percent. Devon is a legit billionaire.”
I slammed my mug down as coffee burned its way down my throat. “A billionaire?”
“He didn’t tell you that part, huh?” Ben said. “Yeah, he is. If you factor in the value of the properties and a bunch of other things.”
“Oh, my God.” I inhaled a breath, trying not to vomit coffee. “He told me it was a lot of money. I thought—I didn’t—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ben said. “This is Devon. He has his head screwed on straight. If anyone can make good of a billion bucks, it’s him.”
“Do you know where he went today?” I asked. “Why someone attacked me last night? Do you know what’s going on?”
“He didn’t tell me,” Ben said, “but I can guess. It probably has to do with one of the pieces of dogshit he used to work for before his prison stretch. If one of those ass pimples smells money, they’re going to come after it any way they can.”
“They want him to be part of some kind of drug deal.”
“Then they’re going to learn a really hard lesson really fast.” Ben pushed his takeout container away and looked at me, folding his big, elegant hands. “You’re worried about him,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Of course I’m worried. He just got out of prison.”
He seemed to consider this. “That isn’t it,” he said thoughtfully. “Or not all of it, anyway. This whole thing has thrown you. You seem to be kind of freaking out.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Because he was right. It wasn’t a big, noisy, dramatic production, but deep inside I was quietly freaking out. “I’m just an average person,” I said. “I don’t know anything about billionaires or drug deals.”
Ben scratched his beard. I realized it had threads of gray mixed in with the dark blond, though he wasn’t yet forty. I had to admit the contrast was unusually attractive. “Everyone is average until they’re not,” he said. “I met Devon when he was eighteen. I wasn’t a lawyer then, but my dad was,
and I volunteered with him in the legal aid office. Devon came in as this punk kid, surly and full of attitude. Just another street kid. He wanted out from under the foster system because he was of age.”
“He told me he never went into the foster system. That he ran away after his mother’s murder.”
For the first time, I had completely surprised Ben. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “He told you about that?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” He scratched his beard again. “Holy shit.” He was really amazed. “I haven’t heard Devon actually talk about that since the first day I met him. Just once, in that legal aid office, and never again. Max never talks about it, either.”
“Max?” I asked, recalling that was Devon’s book-loaning friend.
“Max was his friend then. Through the whole thing. They caught the boyfriend pretty quickly, and it wasn’t much of a trial, but it was still bad. Max went into the military as soon as he was old enough. Cavan just packed his bags and disappeared. And Devon lived on the streets and started driving.” He shrugged. “My point is that life doesn’t always let you be average. It doesn’t let you just live a quiet, unexciting life. In fact, it rarely does. So you have to decide, when the shit happens—whatever it is—exactly how you’re going to rise to the occasion. You know?”
I stared at him for a minute. I had the sneaking suspicion he was lecturing me. “I bet you have your own not-so-boring story,” I said.
He shook his head. “You’re right, but it isn’t very cheerful,” he said. “It sucks. I’ll tell you some other time. You want to go to the movies?”
I shifted my weight. I didn’t think I could sit through a movie and concentrate. My head was spinning, my stomach in knots. At the same time, I couldn’t just sit in this house all day, waiting. I already knew that.
And suddenly I had a clear plan. “Okay,” I said. “Just let me go get ready.”
Ben shrugged. “Take your time.”
I left the kitchen and walked to the front hall. My purse was there, where I’d left it when Devon brought me home last night. I thought of it with a pang, him coming to get me, the worry on his face, how gently he’d handled me. It had taken a lot out of him, I realized that now. He had been wound up, upset, his instinct to growl and rage and throw things. But he had put me first instead.
And now? I didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t know what the future held, even over the next few hours. I didn’t know what we were anymore. And I knew we were lost not because of him, but because of me. Because I wasn’t sure.
I slipped on the sandals I’d been wearing last night. Then instead of walking back to the kitchen, I walked to the side hall. To the door that led to the garage.
I slipped through it as quietly as I could. There, on the hook next to the door, were the car keys. I found the key for the Mercedes. I hit the button for the automatic garage door opener.
