“What? Yes, he was!”
“He’s a jerk, but he asked a good question. WhatamI doing here?” He left the “with you” part of that question unspoken. “I need to focus on the next book. I need to write a proposal.”
“Fine,” Blair said. “Then do it.”
“I can’t do it here.”
“So we’ll go back to Minneapolis.”
She was missing the point, which was that it was time to stop playing house.
“Or come back to LA with me.”
“That’s the last thing I need to do.” It might be the first thing hewantedto do, but, speaking of security blankets, Blair—and her house—couldn’t be his any more than he could be hers.
“What happened toOh, Blair, the only reason I got my second book done was because of you. Being in LA was just the change of scenery I needed?” She was speaking in a snippy tone that startled him.
“What happened is that it was fun while it lasted, but it’s not a permanent fix.”
Jack was being vague. The pronounitin that sentence lacked an antecedent. He would never do that in a book.
What wasit? His time in the pool house? His… thing with Blair?
Thing: more vagueness.
“Of course it’s not a permanent fix,” Blair said, her voice shifting into an exaggerated soothing tone, as if she were talking to a child, which irritated the hell out of Jack. She didn’t talk to her own kids like that. “You remember when you told me you weren’t sure if you could write a book with your dad around? Being at my house was a temporary fix, and maybe it could be again. But I agree that you need a permanent fix. Not just so you can write another book, but so you can be… mentally well.”
“You’regivingmemental health advice?”
It was a low blow, and he knew it. Regretted it the moment it was out of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said tersely. “History is repeating itself here, except it’s now my turn to give you unsolicited but correct advice. You have some stuff to work on. Maybe not as much stuff as I did. I don’t think we’re talking clinical stuff here—”
“Oh, thank you for that astute diagnosis. ‘Not clinical stuff.’ What kind of ‘stuff’ are we talking about then, pray tell?”
“A classic,” she shot back. “Daddy issues.”
“What?” He no longer regretted that previous low blow.
“Come on, you’re a writer. And you’re always trying to resist the obvious interpretation, the metaphor that’s too heavy-handed. Can it get any more obvious or heavy-handed here?”
“I guess not. I guess you’ll need to explain it to me like I’m a child.” She was already talking to him like that anyway.
“You’ve been trying to be like your dad, or to live up to the idea of him.”
That stopped him in his tracks.
“Look. I know I sound harsh, but as your friend, I can’t stand—”
“Are we friends?”
She must have inferred that his answer was no, because she sighed sadly. Looked at him a long time before saying, “Actually, I don’t think so. You want the benefits of friendship without the responsibilities.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. I do not.”
“You do. Drive-by friendship. You take what you need, and then you go. You clearly did it to Allie, and now you’re going to do it to me.”
Shehadn’tjust said that. “That’s not fair.” They were here, weren’t they? At the cabin he’d found for her stupid movie?
