She collects her purse from the kitchen table, where she’d dropped it, like she’s about to head out.
“Tita Wendy, you really don’t have to keep making me food!” I add in a rush. “It means so much to me, but I don’t want to make extra work for you.”
Her mouth forms a surprised little O. “But I’m not—”
“I know, I know, you just made too much.”
“No no, uh—Greg asked me not to tell you, but…” Her mouth curls into a knowing smile, and she raises a hand as if to deflect incoming objections. “A mother reserves the right to make a judgment call.”
“He asked you not to tell me…?”
“Greg made this,” she says with a casual flick of her hand toward the fridge. She laughs. “I haven’t really cooked in years!”
The floor of the kitchen spins, and I brace myself on the counter, trying to seem normal.
“He got interested in it a few years back, when he was going through a rough period. Heartbreak, I think? Some kind of girl trouble—not that he talks to me about it!” Tita Wendy smiles like it’s really a funny story. “He needed a hobby. And he seems embarrassed about it for some reason—who knows why.” She shakes her head, and the wistful look on her face says,That boy is hopeless.“But it works out for me, anyway. I love not having to come up with dinner every night.”
So every time one of them brought me food…Gregactually made it? This information is too much to process. It’s like my body can’t absorb the idea of him caring for me like that.
“Anyway, I’ve got to run.” She gives me a quick kiss on either cheek. “But we’re nearby in case you need anything.”
I need to lie down, and after the door closes behind her, I slump back onto the couch.
Greg’s been feeding me for months, and he didn’t even want me to thank him. An aching mix of guilt and gratitude sticks in my chest.
I grab my phone and start writing him a text:hey thank you so much—
But then I delete it, because he didn’t want his mom to say anything, and I don’t want to make things weird for them.
Instead I put on some rice, lie back down to stare at the ceiling while it cooks, and heat up the laing once it’s almost ready.
I take some photos of the steaming plate in front of me, searching for the best angle, and send one to Greg with the message:sooo good!
And just in case it makes him uncomfortable, I add:your mom really is the best cook.
Chapter
35
All of a sudden, Mark Winterson seems to want me around more often. He asks me to sleep over twice during the week—unprecedented!—andon the weekend.
But the more time I spend with him, the more I notice strange things. On Tuesday, he keeps getting calls all evening. While we’re eating at a restaurant, he gets a text that makes him visibly agitated, and he walks outside, telling me to stay put and that he’ll be right back. And when he returns, his eyes are a little red, and there’s some pink in his cheeks.
On Thursday, he starts putting on his clothes at two a.m., and when he notices that I’m awake, he says he needs to go to the office for an emergency—something about how TKCORP’s operations are global, so he’s never really off the clock.
And on Saturday night, we’re lying in bed when his phone starts buzzing on the nightstand, and he hurries out of the room to answer it. Whatever he’s saying sounds urgent, but I can’t quite make out the words.
He comes back and gets dressed in a hurry while I keep my eyes squeezed shut. His footsteps recede down the stairs, and there’s some distant clattering, the sound of him moving around below. I hear the wordFuck!distinctly at least once. There are a few moments of silence, followed by the rumble of the garage door opening and closing. I pad over to the window in time to see his sleek black Mercedes driving away into the night.
What on earth?
I get up to pace around—there’s no way I can sleep now—and wander down to his office. The first thing I notice is the glow of his monitor. His computer has been left on, screen unlocked, open to his email.
And even though it feels wrong, every strange thing that’s happened lately, all bundled together, propels me across the floor to his keyboard, where I search the wordsDocuSign Relationship Contract,looking for the same one he sent me.
Andoh my God,there are so many! His whole dating history laid out here, relationship contract after relationship contract. Following each one, a few weeks after the first email, there’s a follow-up to the same address—Update to: Relationship Contract.
“Contract terminated in person,” I read out loud. “Irreconcilable differences.”
