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“Okay,” Lauren said. “It sounds like a plan. Should I call Queenie, or do you want to handle that?”
“She’s due to feed me in ten minutes, so I’ll let her know. Have you had anything unexpected today?”
“No. The vision thing has come in handy a few times, and I’ll have to figure out how I want to handle it when I know someone is lying. I mean, what they were lying about didn’t matter today, so I let it go, but what do I do when it’s something important?”
“Would it be okay if I visited you and Ambrose this evening after dark? I’d like to help you navigate your thoughts on this, and a few other things.”
“I’m having dinner at Homewood tonight. Eight their time which is seven here. I don’t know if I’ll spend the night and come back here in the morning to get ready for work, or if I’ll return to Branson tonight. I can let you know if I return tonight.” She sighed. “I didn’t know where mom would be picking me up from when we talked earlier, but I guess she’ll get me either from work or from Ambrose’s house, depending on how late I work.”
“It would be best if she got you from Ambrose’s place,” Gavin said. “So you’ll have your car with you when she returns you.”
“My place is sanctified, so she’ll have to pick you up from the road.” Ambrose said. “She’s welcome to walk up the driveway and visit with you, of course.”
Lauren turned to the demi-god in her car. “Wait. If you can block it, you can probably do it, right?”
When Ambrose didn’t respond, she asked again, but point-blank this time. “Can you step out of and back into reality?”
No one spoke, and she guessed neither Gavin nor Ambrose was going to tell her, so she worked it through in her head. “If you can’t, it shows a weakness that you won’t want anyone to know about. If you can, it’s a strength that’s best kept secret, in case it’s needed.” She considered any in-between options. “Or, if you can, but only once a day because it weakens you, then you wouldn’t want anyone to know that either, because the knowledge could be used in strategy against you.”
Twenty seconds later, Gavin finally broke the silence. “What’s on your schedule the rest of the day, Lauren?”
“I’m about to have a meeting with an insurance guy about your current coverage, and what he thinks needs to be upgraded. I’ll have a report for you on our meeting by tomorrow when you rise, with his recommendations along with mine. Before the meeting takes place, I can tell you I think you’re underinsured for issues involving your stars. I know we have understudies, but if the primary on one of the tribute shows is found to be a serial killer and is jailed, or if it gets out that he or she is a pedophile who rapes kids, you’ll take a huge hit at that theater until we can install a completely different show.”
“If someone had a way to look through the memories of their stars, so they could be certain this won’t be an issue, then it wouldn’t be necessary to buy insurance for such an event.”
Lauren sat back and closed her eyes. She should’ve known. “Am I wasting my time with this meeting?”
“No. I’ve looked over the insurance coverage, but you know more about the industry than I do, so it’s possible you’ll foresee something I haven’t.”
Chapter 5
Four hours later, Lauren sat in her car, on the road near Ambrose’s driveway, waiting for her mother to zap herself to Lauren. Her mom wouldn’t be able to get a lock on her when she was on Ambrose’s property, so Lauren had driven down to the road. She didn’t jump even a tiny bit when her mom was suddenly sitting in the passenger seat beside her.
“You’re getting better at that.”
“You know what they say about practice. How are you doing?”
“Nick is so mad at me, he won’t even let me come home to pack my things.”
The crazy thing was, it hadn’t felt likehomeuntil she was barred from returning.
“And how are you going to fix that?” her mother asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Do you want to fix it?”
“Yeah, though things might be easier if I didn’t. I mean, he said he loves me. Why would he do that? We promised to always be friends.”
“Are you saying you don’t love him?”
Tears came to her eyes but didn’t spill over. “If we fall in love, we’ll lose our friendship. Ican’tlose his friendship.”
“Maybe he needs to understand what you just told me.”
Lauren shook her head. “No. He’s right about one thing — I didn’t respect him as Rex. I just saw him as Nick, and after being around Nathan and Cora, that was stupid of me.”
“A mistake is only truly a mistake if you don’t learn from it.”
