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The outdoor heater makes a weird popping sound and clicks off, plunging the patio’s temperature.
“I omitted,” she says.
Like I’m omitting the truth about both my books. The iron countdown corset binding my ribs punishes me with a sharp squeeze like someone yanked on the laces.
My heart pinches.
My lungs cramp.
My throat tightens.
I have to tell Vi the truth. Now. I suck in cool air through my teeth and rub my arms against the goosebumps rising under my thin sleeves, wishing I’d kept Gabe’s shirt. Wishing I’d kept Gabe. “About the book...”
Shivering, she takes off the wide silver bracelet she’s been wearing every day and plays with it. One of the lanterns hanging overhead catches the jewelry just right. There’s words engraved inside I can’t read, but the initials at the bottom I can.T.G.Trevor Gray.
Mom’s diary spins in my head, and my admission dies in my chest.
Vi slides the bracelet back on and tugs the cuffs peeking out of suit jacket down over her wrists. “Holy Seven Sacraments, Jess. Get it out. I’m freezing my lipo’d assets off out here.”
“How long have you and Dad...?”
She looks like she’s counting back. “After his fifth book.”
It’s not hard to do the math. They’ve been together a year. A year without telling me.
“The man’s brilliant. I went after him to sign him.” A ridiculous smile slides over her face. “He wanted something else.”
I don’t want to think about how that smile makes her glow like she’s in love with him or the something else he wanted. How could he do that to Mom? To us? How could he love her the way he did in the diary and then be with Vi?
Another shiver racks her upper body, and she buttons her suit jacket. “I moved out of the hotel room.”
“Into Dad’s bedroom.” Picturing her zebra lingerie decorating his bathroom sways my stomach.
“I thought you’d want me out. I’ll be gone before you get home.” She shifts her weight to her left heel. “I always am.”
“What?” Her words shove me back into the half wall. Rough bricks scratch my hip. “You’ve stayed at my house?”
“When you were at some weekend retreats. And camp this summer.”
“You were having sex with my dad while I was at church?” My cringe runs so deep inside me, something cracks.
“It sounds so wrong when you say it that way.” She blows off my hysterics by lifting a perfectly arched eyebrow that highlights her contoured cheekbones. “But whatever. The thing between me and your dad isn’t about you.”
It is about me. How’s he supposed to give Mom a second chance when he’s withher?
“I’ll see you inside.” Spinning away, she navigates the landscape toward the main courtyard, clicking out of my space as abruptly as she clicked in. The staccato of her heels bouncing off the brick drums in my ears.
A few yards away, she pauses to face me over the low bushes. “Don’t stay out here too long. You don’t want to be sick for your release party. And I need the blurb from your second book by tomorrow morning.” With one quick gesture of her raspberry nail, she cinches that last tie on my countdown corset and disappears.
chapter 42
Gabe
“Don’t sell out for anything less than the best offer.”
~ Meredith Morgan
(played by the award-winning Meredith Wade)
