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I slip my hand away.
In a rare show of modesty, she tugs her dress over her knees. “You’re not Nick. I know that. That’s why I wanted you.” Her eyes go glassy. “When you walked away, it hurt. And if we can’t even be friends, I don’t have anyone.”
The thing is, as long as I’ve known her, I can’t tell if she’s shooting straight. With people like us, who exist in a vacuum of false emotions, the mask rarely drops. And when it does—I glance at the hotel—it doesn’t end well. “Where’s your stuff?”
She holds up her purse. “Alan flew me in for the interview and booked a red-eye back.”
When that live wire zaps me one last time, I start the engine. Kim, the show, North Carolina—it’s not a world I want, but it’s the world I can have.
chapter 61
Jess
T and I spent the afternoon in his hammock. Me begging him to stay. Him promising nothing would change when he left. He’s wrong. Things already feel different. I’m losing him.
Days to graduation: 20
Days to boot camp: 27
Days to my heart breaking: 0
~ from the diary of Elizabeth Sara Thorne (age 17)
Gabe’s name Sharpied across my hip hollows my heart.
Vi’s zebra bra sitting on my kitchen island shrivels my stomach.
I don’t have it in me to handle morning-after Vi. Not when I’ve touched the lingerie she wears in—and apparently out of—Dad’s bedroom. “Where is she?” I ask him.
He and his laptop are parked at the breakfast nook, making me question if I’ve woken in some alternate universe where he’s switched out the shade of his writing cave for the sunlight of our bay window. “Who?” He stops typing and glances up.
I point to the bra.
“Jeez, Jess.” And my brawny, stoic dad goes seven shades of flustered. “When I left for the hotel yesterday, I didn’t think you’d be home until tomorrow.” Rushing the island, he tries to stuff the bra into his pocket. The only part that fits is the band that hooks the back. He spends an entire minute giving it the old marine try before he figures out what I already know—Vi’s enhanced assets fit into that bra, and they’re in no way pocket-sized.
Whipping around, he shoves the bra into the cupboard with the coffee cups, then turns and awkwardly blocks his indiscretion. “Vi’s not here. We thought it might be better if she stayed at the hotel.”
We.I press my hand against my stomach. Vi and Dad are awe? Deep down, I’d been hoping Vi was his midlife crisis, and like a last-chance sports car, once he’d driven her long enough the initial thrill would wear off. “I’m going back to bed.” And sleep off the rest of my life.
“We need to talk.” He points to the closest barstool with an iron finger.
My butt hits the checkered cushion like a well-trained marine, but the rest of me refuses to fall in line.
He pours himself a cup of coffee and slides an Einstein’s bag across the island.
I open it, eyeing food my stomach’s telling me it won’t hold down. “They’re all blueberry.”
“And?”
“Vi likes blueberry.” I close the bag and push it away. “I like garlic.”
“Right.” His lips tighten as he traces the top of his mug.
“Do we really have to do this?” I kick my foot against the bottom rung of the barstool.
Pushing the coffee to the side, he sighs and flattens his palms on the island. “I’m sorry.”
His inaugural apology throws me. “For Vi or the bagels?”
