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“Who’s Caroline?” Henley queries, forever curious. She asks as many personal questions as Lucy.
The smile she hasn’t stopped wearing since she awarded me the show of my life slips when I answer with an honesty I don’t give many people. “My wife.”
“You mean your ex-wife?” She frowns, certain I dropped the beginning of Caroline’s title.
“No,” I disagree. “She is still my wife. Her death didn’t change that.” Eager for the mood not to sour with more words, I tell her we will meet out front in half an hour before exiting the kitchen. “Pack a swimsuit. Lucy is a water baby.”
9
HENLEY
“I’m sure you’re overreacting.” Amelia rolls onto her back before adjusting the angle of her phone so I’m watching her from above. “Sometimes that’s the consequence of having a big-ass brain.”
I roll my eyes before shifting the focus off my stupidity. “How was last night’s band? Any better than the Friday night disaster?”
“I’m up, talking to you before midday. How do you think it went?”
I screw up my face. “That bad? What is that, the fifth flop this month?”
Amelia’s chest rises and falls with her big sigh. “Perhaps Ravenshoe has lost its knack for finding mega stars?”
Her gripe reminds me of an important fact I forgot to tell her last night when we FaceTimed from the second-story balcony so I didn’t wake up Brodie, who has gone to bed as early as Lucy the last three nights.
His early bedtime routine would have you convinced he didn’t enjoy the preview of how sparking we could be if he stopped pulling the age card.
It is a pity for him his body can’t tell the same lies as his mouth. The remembrance is the only thing stopping my ego from dropping off a steep cliff.
“Guess who Brodie once worked for?”
Amelia taps her lips for barely a second. “The Dalai Lama?” When I scoff, she grins. “What? I could have said Trump.”
“He’s a federal agent, not a bodyguard.”
“And the exact reason I stand by my guesses.”
My eyes face their second strain this morning before I shut up her giggles by flipping my phone’s camera to face a group of picture frames on the hallway table.
Her squeal is so loud the speakers in my cell almost blow up. “What the fuck? No way! How the hell does he know Rise Up!”
“Lucy didn’t say”—and I’m too chicken to ask Brodie—“but this isn’t the only image I’ve seen of them. The ones in Lucy’s room are personalized to her, and she has a Jenni Holt dress in her wardrobe.”
“Shut the front door!” She looks mind-blown. “She’s your favorite designer, and Rise Up is your all-time favorite band. Slater and Noah got you off more than Beau ever could freshman year!” Her eyes bulge before she suddenly jackknifes into a half-seated position. “Do you think you’ll have a chance to meet them?” Her eyes bug even more. “What if they’re at the barbecue you’re about to attend?”
When her quick moves blur the screen, I ask, “What are you doing?”
“Looking for my suitcase. I’m sure your southern charm will keep them put until I arrive. It’s only a twenty-two-hour cross-country journey. No time at all.”
“We’re not going to a friend’s barbecue.” Amelia stops packing long enough to take in my disgruntled expression. “It is his wife’s family’s annual get-together.”
“Oh… so that’s how you fucked up by mentioning his dead wife?”
“I didn’t know she was dead,” I contest. “And when you go to a man’s house and there are no pictures of a woman to be seen, he’s either divorced or—”
“A cheating scumbag,” she interrupts.
“Exactly.” I stuff my swimsuit—that goes nicely with Brodie’s old-aged personality since it is frumpy and floral—into my day bag before adding, “Since my brain impressed him more than my outfit, I assumed he was divorced.”
“You fucked up.” Yes, that was voiced like the TikTok sound clip.
“I did, and now I have to spend the next several hours with people who probably think I want to replace his wife. I’d never do that. Lucy will only ever have one mother.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Hen, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop lying to me.” When I arch a brow and gape my mouth, she pffts at me. “He gave you an out, but you’re still packing.”
“He gave me an out before I knew about his dead wife.”
She continues talking as if I didn’t interrupt her. “Because you’re curious enough to continually step out of your comfort zone for this man.” Again, she taps her lips. “You’ve never masturbated in your life, but the one time you decide to give it a whirl, you do it in front of your boss!”
“Amelia Josephine Lockhart! If you were here—”
“You’d be batting me off Brodie with a stick. My god. That man and his massive trunk need their own zip code. It’s been days and I still haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
