“We’ll have to wait and see.”
The air outside is thick from the rain, and the sharp mineral smell turns my stomach.
As Beau’s brake lights disappear down the club’s drive, my phone vibrates with a text.
I check the screen, hoping for a message from Beau.
But that’s not what I get. The 310 number is back.
5:37 P.M.
Looks like Beau made the evening news. Let’s talk in person.
I stop cold. Nora and Polly are a few steps ahead of me, but when they realize I’m no longer beside them, they turn.
The news package that aired to half of Winter Park a few minutes ago is a local broadcast. As in, not available in California. My past has made it all the way to Winter Park.
Talking is one thing. But I’m not meeting in person. Ican’t.From Boston to New Orleans, New Orleans to California, I’ve treated every relocation like a reinvention. And every reboot comes with the same rule: Don’t pick at old wounds. The past only has power when you open the door and invite it back in.
Rain comes down in sheets around us, soaking my clothes until my socks are clinging to my feet. The sound of the raindrops ricocheting off asphalt and car hoods is all I can hear for a second.
The night Gemma died? Outside of Lemon & Fig? Was he there then, too?
“Este, are you okay?” Polly asks. Her voice is tentative, but she has to shout over the splashes of the storm.
I paste on a brittle smile. “Yeah. Fine. Sorry.”
“Listen,” Nora cuts in, pulling at the fabric clinging to her skin. “I’m wearing all white in the rain. Can we talk about this somewhere else—”
“Yes,” I say. “Sorry. I’ll drive you home.”
But as I walk toward my car, my body feels heavy. My phone dangles in my hand like deadweight. Somewhere between the news clip and the text and that stupid pocket square I’m still carrying around, my life has twisted into something unrecognizable. But one truth hums loud and clear beneath the chaos.
The noose around my new life is tightening, and my old life knows something about it.
Chapter 21
California
“Simon really thinks he can kill me off like that? Just—poof—and I’m disappeared? Does he know who I am?” I waved my glass of red wine around, and it sloshed a little over the rim as I jabbed the air with each word. “I’m not some problem he can erase. Like a bad tattoo.”
I was pacing and slurring my words, wobbly but determined.
“I’m a fucking phoenix. I’m a goddamn Avenger. I’m—” I raised my hands, more wine splashing. “I’m the McRib. You can’tcancelthe McRib. It always comes back. Because the McRib is scrappy. It’s tenacious.”
And it was true, I could come back, but first, I would have to get myself out of the loop I was stuck in.
It had been like this for almost two weeks now, ever since Simon left me that cowardly note. I’d gone straight home, propped the note up on my coffee table like some fucked-up art installation, and hauled a bottle of tequila out of my freezer. Inevitably, the drinking turned to processing, which always spiraled into me defending myself—having full conversations with Simon’s stationery card. Some nights, I cried. Other nights, I begged.
Tonight? Tonight was for rage.
I was humiliated. Besides Gemma, my social life had been consumed with Simon and his crowd. Anyone I might have thought about calling would be on his side. And while Delia wasunderstanding, suggesting I come to New Orleans to get back on my feet, she found things like disappointment and heartache to be “very pedestrian.” Not to mention bad for frown lines.
I wished I could call my parents. I missed them so much, there were moments it physically hurt to draw breath.
Instead, as always, I was alone.
“All because I brought you the acquisition you wanted and you blew it up? Youweasel.” I glared at the heavy card stock, drunkenly musing about taking it to a psychic to have it cursed, to somehow throw Simon’s life into chaos with bad energy.
