She’s about to shut the door but stops. “Yeah?”
“I…” I want to tell her I’m not going anywhere, but how can I when I am going somewhere, and soon. What can I say to put her mind at ease? “I want you.”
Fuck. That didn’t come out right. I want you? I started to say I want you in my life, but midsentence I thought that might be too confusing since I’ll be gone in two weeks.
Her brows pull down, clearly puzzled by what I just said. “Well, you have me.”
“We’ll talk later,” I offer awkwardly.
“Okay.”
Rhonda sees Maddie’s hands are full and quickly comes to the door to hold it open. As soon as she steps inside, Rhonda takes everything from her, sets it all on a table, then pullsher friend into a big hug. I forgot that they haven’t seen each other since Maddie got the bad news. I’m glad she has such a good friend.
As I drive away, my phone rings. It’s Ash.
I pull over and shift into park. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“A few things, but I’ll get to them in a minute. How are things there?”
“Better than you’d expect. We made all the funeral arrangements yesterday.”
“Gravestone too?”
“Yeah, that was rough.”
“I bet. How is she?”
“Okay. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, you think you have it under control, then out of nowhere, something reminds you of something, and it all comes crashing down.”
“Yep. She’s being tough about it so far, but I’ve kept her pretty busy, so she hasn’t had a lot of time to dwell on it. I think the funeral will be when it really hits her, but she’ll get through it. Anyway, what’s going on there?”
“National Discovery sent over the contract. You gotta hand it to Elsie.”
“How much did she get?”
“If I cared, I would have asked, but her assistant said it was more than the network wanted to pay. I’m sure the details are in the three-hundred-page contract. You can read it if you want.”
That’s not going to happen. We have lawyers for that. “I’m good as long as Elsie is happy with it.”
“She is. Typical puppy-scale.”
That makes me laugh. When we made our first million, Elsie acted like she couldn’t care less. To her, it was just onesmall step in her big plan to take over the world. Regardless, to celebrate, Ash and I got her two Siberian Husky puppies, and she literally lost her mind over them. Now, no matter how much money we make, nothing ever comes close to the reaction she had seeing those two dogs for the first time. Ever since then, we rate her response on “the puppy scale.” Is she as excited as she was when she got the Huskies? The answer is always the same—not even close.
Anyway, whatever Elsie did, she got the network to make an offer much sooner than I thought was possible. “I’m surprised this happened so fast.”
“I am too.”
Now for the part I hate. “I’m guessing there are some papers that need to be signed.”
“And notarized. Where are you staying?”
After I give him the hotel’s address, he tells me he’ll overnight the papers I need to sign.
“As soon as I get everything back from you, Elsie is cutting me loose. When is the funeral?”
“Saturday.”
