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“Yeah. You change. I, uh…”
“You’ll stall him,” she finishes my sentence. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to do something that makes you uncomfortable.”
No. That’s perfect. “Where are you two going?”
“Why would we be going anywhere? I only invited him to the party.”
“Lexi.”
She swallows hard. “Okay, fine, you got me. I texted him to meet me at the park,” she says. “You’ll really stall him?”
“Of course,” I say. “I just need your keys.”
“Mykeys?”
“Yeah.” Why do I need her keys? That’s not a very good claim. “My car is charging. And I can’t keep him here. Not where Willa could see the two of you get together.”
She nods, somehow following my half-baked logic. Because how the hell would Willa know the difference between River and Jake? This whole situation is running on nonsense.
“I’ll take him to a bar,” I tell her, “keep him comfortable while he waits. You do need to talk to Willa, anyway. Explain why Jake isn’t here.”
“Shit.”
“Tell her he got food poisoning,” I say. “Talk up the app. I can manage an hour or two of friendliness with River.”
“Can you?”
“Hey. When we were teens, I talked to him more than you did.” That wasn’t hard to do, since she had zero conversations with him, but I keep that to myself. “This won’t even ping his radar, I promise. Just two old friends catching up.” Okay, friends might be stretching it.
Lexi smiles, but she drops it quickly. “Are you sure?”
“A favor for a favor,” I say. “You can owe me one.”
She looks at me like she doesn’t believe me, but she hands me the keys anyway.
Chapter Six
River
After an afternoon of reminiscing about family, Grandma and I spend the evening reminiscing about her favorite topic: work. The rainy spring break trip to the city, the one where we first encountered the independent bookstore without a romance section.
The manager refused to carry a romance or erotica section, even when she offered to send him a box of books. Signed books. Out of print signed books.
He was unmoved by her pictures with Fabio. Can you believe it? (As if I hadn’t been there, observing every moment.) Even when she offered to get him on Fabio’s Christmas card list.He’s really a sweet guy, you know. I taught him a thing or two back in the day. Writing skills, of course. That was before my husband passed. If I knew him now…
The snowy Christmas she spent on my couch in New York, trying to coach my hopeless roommate into finishing a single project. Thanks to her many connections, I live in the city rent free. As long as I help her rich friend’s son work on his creative projects, I can stay. The guy is never around. He’s always partying in Rome or Ibiza, but for some reason, his parents are happy just to have me there as a “good influence.”
Then it’s the summer we spent in Italy, at another famous writer’s vacation home. She refers to his genre (adventure) and skill (middling) as if I didn’t meet the guy, and his wife, and hear way too many stories about their middling adventures, sometimes with my grandma.
Then it’s stories about Fern and North. Not that either of them spends the summer here anymore. North is married, with two kids of her own. And Fern is busy with her PhD program in chemistry. Grandma always insists she’s happy with the alone time, the freedom, but I hear the loneliness in her voice.
It hits me somewhere deep. It overwhelms me. I ran away from home because I needed it. She pushed me into it, she insisted, yes, but that’s what she always does. She acts as if she’s the strongest, most independent person in the universe.
She stays hands off. She learned that lesson with Mom.
We talk as the sun dips into the sky and the sounds of the Huntington party take over the space.
That’s my cue to meet Lexi.
