Page 39 of Plain Sight

“That you’d leave.”

“I’m not leaving. Lily’s here.”

Pain flickers across Gabriel’s face and disappears.

“You don’t live here, anyway. Under normal circumstances. You wouldn’t notice if I left.”

“Yes, Jameson. I would.”

“Okay.”

“So I’m here to have this intervention.” Gabriel sings intervention in a tune that must be more melancholy than he meant for it to be. “Please. Stop. Or at least tell us what you need help with so we can go with you.”

“I’m just looking for information.”

“You’re looking for Walsh. Have you found him yet? And Lily’s Good Samaritan?”

“She told you about that too?”

“She did.”

I take the ice pack from him and hold it up all by myself. Gabriel remains his present self, thank fuck. The kitchen doesn’t spin. I don’t necessarily trust that it will stay put, but it’s here for now.

“I have to make this place safe for her.” It sounds like a weak excuse, but I mean it. I mean every word. Somebody has to do this, and it’s not like the family can spare anyone else.

“Don’t you think,” Gabriel says, “that it’s more important for Lily to have you?”

I don’t answer.

I can’t.

The look in Gabriel’s eyes says my silence is answer enough.

10

LILY

One of the more surreal things about living with Jameson’s family is the cake.

Elise, the famous baker and childhood best friend of Charlotte, made our wedding cake. That was surreal in and of itself, having her in charge of our wedding cake. She’s the kind of person who makes wedding cakes for actual celebrities and the kinds of rich people who are so rich you don’t get the sense of its scale until they invite you into their mansion.

Kind of like the Hills, I guess. Although Mason lives in a penthouse overlooking Central Park.

The surreal part about Elise is that she still likes baking, despite being so famous for it. When times get stressful, she heads to the kitchen.

So after I wake up to discover that Jameson has tripped and fallen and now has an ugly bruise on his cheek and a fat lip, and after he goes his merry way with his brothers to the office, Elise and Charlotte and I gather in the kitchen so Elise can bake our sorrows away. There’s a lot of powdered sugar in the air, and everything smells faintly of almonds, and I can’t wait to eat it. I’m also slightly worried that I won’t be able to eat it with this lump in my throat. I take a seat at the kitchen table, facing Elise at the counter, and breathe.

“Elise?” Lydia, Elise’s younger sister, hovers in the kitchen door. “Is it okay if we order food?”

Elise puts her hands on her hips. She has a branded apron from her bakery over a pair of shorts and a cropped sweatshirt that has a rainbow cupcake on the front. Her perfectly messy bun bobbles on top of her head when she stares down her little sister.

“What, you and Nate don’t want to gorge yourselves on cake and hang out with us old people?”

“You’re totally not old,” Lydia says, blushing at Nate’s name. The crush is strong with this one.

“Cake isn’t good for you,” Nate intones, coming to stand next to Lydia. “It’s calorically dense, yes, but you cannot survive on cake alone.”

“I disagree.” Elise wipes her hands on her apron. “You can survive on cake alone. But if you want to order food, that’s fine. You just have to let Derek bring it up.”