Page 45 of The Malibu Secret

I force my lips into what must be a brittle smile. "Have fun." I wave him away, watching as he hesitates at the door. "Don't worry about me. I won't wait up."

He leaves and my mother glides into the living room, dressed up for her gig that night at Indigo, all sequins and red lipstick like she's twenty-five instead of fifty-five. "Tally," she says, voice razor-sharp. "I need to talk to you."

I nod, my jaw already clenching. "Let me put Brinley down," I say. "Be right back."

I put Brinley in her latest onesie, bright yellow with a duck face, and press my lips to her forehead, breathing in her baby-powder smell, trying to steady myself.

"Okay, Mom, what's up?" I drop onto the couch, bracing for impact.

She slams her hand over mine. "Aren't you carrying this whole thing with Cameron a bit too far?"

"What are you talking about?" My voice comes out like broken glass.

"He just went out on a date with somebody else, that's what I'm talking about." She shakes her head, earrings swinging violently. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Mom," I say, squeezing my eyes shut so hard I see stars. "I'm sending him off to be happy with somebody because he sure as hell won't be happy with me."

"Tally," she hisses, "You need therapy. You need to talk to somebody before you blow the best thing that ever happened to you."

"Mom, I've had therapy, remember?" My laugh is bitter acid. "It was court mandated therapy when I was a kid and being shuffled around from one home to the next." I slam my fist against my thigh. "The last thing I want to do is talk to somebody who'll bring up all this shit."

"Tally, that's what therapy is for."

"Well, I'm not ready for that," I snap, my voice cracking. And then I shake my head, rage boiling up from somewhere deep and dark. Goddamn it. This is her fault. If she didn't make my childhood such a fucking nightmare, I wouldn't have the baggage I have now and I'd be able to give Cameron what he wants from me, which is to be his wife.

But life doesn' t work that way, does it? It's not a choose-your-own-adventure book where you can flip back to page 47 and pick door number two instead. My whole life is a tangled web of consequences, and when I think about it, I never would’ve met Cam, period, if I had had a normal childhood. After all, I met Celeste because I took that Soul Cycle class in West Hollywood when I was 23. I only lived in West Hollywood because I'd stayed with a foster family there when I was 16—six months of actual stability that felt like heaven. After college, I wanted to recapture that feeling, so I got an apartment three blocks from their old place.

Without that foster family, without that particular neighborhood, I never meet Celeste at that class. Without Celeste, I'm not at that specific Happy Hour on that specific night, which means no car accident. And even if by some cosmic joke I still somehow crossed paths with Cameron, he never would have given me a second glance if I wasn't Celeste's friend who'd just been hospitalized.

Guess there's a silver lining to every dark cloud. If I hadn't such a shit show of a childhood, I might never have crossed paths with Cameron. Or found Celeste, the sister life never gave me but somehow delivered anyway. Maybe I should be sending Mom a thank-you note instead of getting mad at her.

"Mom," I say, keeping my voice steady. "I hear you. I do. But I've got this handled."

Her eyebrows lift. "And if they click over dinner? If they laugh and talk for hours and then⁠—"

"End up at her place..." The words stick in my throat. My mind floods with images I can't bear: Cameron's lips on someone else's, his hands tracing unfamiliar curves, his eyes—those eyes that make me feel like the center of the universe—focused on another woman.

Christ. Maybe I do need that therapist after all.

Chapter Thirty-Six

CAMERON

The seasons change, and with them, my feelings for Willow deepen—an unexpected complication. At home, Tally still occupies the same space, our lives intertwined through Brinley's care.

Willow's schedule as a pediatric oncologist dictates our relationship: three nights of dinners and conversations with her are all I can get, because four days a week she’s at the hospital, doing the most physically and emotionally draining work possible. The remaining four nights find me at home, where Tally, her mother and I fall into domestic rhythms—sharing meals, Marisa and I playing piano together, board game competitions, and movie nights with commentary. Brinley transforms daily, her laugh now filling rooms, her sleep finally uninterrupted through the night. Tally has grown into motherhood, needing me less for midnight feedings.

My life splits neatly: four nights of family dinners with the woman I dream of marrying, three nights of possibility with someone new, all while guilt gnaws at me for leaving the woman I love alone with our child. This impossible equation balances only because Tally herself insists on it as a solution.

The text from Willow arrives like a grenade with its pin pulled. She wants to meet Brinley—properly this time, not like that brief introduction at the chalet months ago.

"Tally," I say, matching her fold-for-fold as we tackle the mountain of baby clothes on the couch. Across the room, Brinley's walker bumps against the coffee table, her five-month-old giggles punctuating the silence between us. The gray tabby—Tally's compromise between wanting Brinley to have a pet and her own limited bandwidth, as Tally doesn’t have the time or patience for a higher maintenance pet like a dog—weaves between the walker's wheels. "Willow's been asking about spending time with Brinley."

Tally's hands freeze mid-fold over a yellow onesie. She nods mechanically, but her eyes tell a different story. "Right. Of course." Her voice thins as she smooths invisible wrinkles from the fabric. "If you two are getting serious, she should probably know..." The sentence hangs incomplete as she turns away. "Excuse me. I just remembered something."

"Tally—"

"It's fine, Cameron." Her back is to me now. "Introduce them."