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Bailey opened her mouth, then shut it again and turned back to the TV. Nicole doubted Bailey was watching it any more than she was.
“B?”
Bailey shook her head, and her chin trembled.
“Hey. What’s wrong?”
Bailey covered her face with both hands.
Nicole set the bowl on the coffee table, grabbed the box of tissues, and scooted down the couch to push it into Bailey’s lap. Bailey wasn’t just teary. She was crying the way people cried after they’d been holding it in for days, her shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping it quiet. Nicole rubbed her back.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I love you, B. You know that.”
“I love you too, Nikki.” Her voice broke right in the middle, and she cried harder.
Nicole’s stomach went tight. What the hell had happened? “Are you and Ryan okay?”
Bailey nodded fast and pulled a tissue from the box. “It’s not Ryan.”
“Your mom? Is she okay?”
Another nod, the tissue over her mouth. Nicole kept rubbing slow circles on her back and waited, because she didn’t know what else to do.
Finally, Bailey lowered her hands. Her face was red and blotchy, her lashes wet and clumped together. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“And you might hate me.” She wiped under her eyes. “If you do, I get it. I swear I do.”
“Bailey, I could never hate you.”
A miserable little laugh came out of her. “You might.”
“Just tell me.”
Bailey took a breath that didn’t sound like it helped. “Remember when you first told me about your dad? About Gina?”
“Yeah.”
Like she could forget. Bailey was the first person she’d told. Nicole had sat right here on this couch and cried while Bailey held on to her and swore it was going to be okay.
“What about it?”
“I told my mom.”
Nicole’s hand went still on her back.
“I’m so sorry.” The words came tumbling out. “I know you didn’t want anybody knowing, and I didn’t tell anybody else, I swear to God. Just her. I don’t even know why I did it. We were on the phone, and it just came out, and the second I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have.”
Nicole sat back a little.
Back then she could hardly say it out loud herself. The last thing she’d wanted was her family’s business getting talked over in somebody’s kitchen two thousand miles away. But the whole world knew now.
“Hey. It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not.”
“I wish you hadn’t, but I get it. She’s your mom.”
