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“That would probably be okay, but for right now, we’d like you to hold tight. Let us come up with a plan with our PR team,” John said. “Let’s touch base again tomorrow.”
They left and Reese headed straight for the kitchen. She pulled a bottle of Riesling from the fridge, her emergency bottle. She rarely drank, but she needed something right now. She poured herself a liberal glass and tilted the bottle toward Cam. He shook his head.
“You know I’m going to go crazy,” she said after one long gulp. The sweet burn down her throat was exactly what she needed.
“I can call Devi and let her know I need to hang out here with you for a few weeks. We can take up knitting or binge watch TV until we go cross-eyed.”
“I screwed up, but that doesn’t mean you have to be punished too. And I don’t want you to stay here forever. You have your own life to go back to. In fact, I insist you go home. You have a job, and your dad needs you working for him, not minding me.”
His face clouded over for a second, but then he smiled. Once again, Reese was confused by that.
“He can spare me for a few days. Even a week.”
“You don’t need to take care of me,” Reese insisted.
“But you need me.”
“Maybe John is right. Maybe I should take a vacation. The alone time might do me good. I could go up to lake country, spend time reading. I’ve always wanted to write a memoir. I could get started on that. I could write several chapters on Jennifer.”
Cam smirked. “Not funny. And being all alone?”
“I can do it. And maybe I need to do it.”
Part of her was used to it. She’d been alone a lot, and if she were honest with herself, she was used to it. And as much as she tried to convince Cam that going home and back to his life was the right thing to do, for the first time in her life, the thought of spending so much time alone with herself was terrifying.
ChapterNine
John and Marnie spent a few more days formulating a plan. In that time, Cam went back to London. Reese was truly alone. No best friend, no boyfriend…no one at all. Reese avoided all social media and had turned off her phone. She’d transformed one section of her living room into a makeshift gym where she worked out at least an hour or two a day. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do.
She looked for reasons to leave her condo, and like most afternoons, she decided to check on her mail. When she opened the door, an envelope dropped to the ground. Someone must have lodged it between the door and the frame. She picked it up and felt a momentary pang of anxiousness. Had some wingnut found their way into her building? But as she turned it over and saw her name printed in a scrawl, it looked familiar, and she smiled. She tore open the envelope to find the note inside.
Hey Reese, Jennifer is a piece of work. My offer still stands if you need anything.
Grady
She stared at the note for a while. She then jogged over to his door and knocked. She did it before she chickened out and hid in her apartment. He opened the door and smiled when he saw her. His blue eyes lit up.
“Hey,” he said.
“I got your note,” she said, holding it up. “Thank you.”
“I figured you were probably taking a beating and could use some words of support. I think we’ve all had a Jennifer in our lives. Except maybe Jennifer?”
Reese chuckled at that. “I’ll take any support I can get. I’ve pretty much removed myself from social media and society. Looks like it will be that way for a few months.”
“Man, that’s horrible. But you go out, right? Do things?”
“John, my agent—our agent, I guess?—suggests that I take a vacation, but it’s not really in the cards. So I’m hanging out in my condo.”
“Don’t your friends come over?”
She frowned at that. How could she tell him she essentially had no friends other than Cam? That anyone she called a friend was merely someone who needed or wanted something from her? She hadn’t had good friends since middle school, but those friendships had faded away when she’d focused on skating. She occasionally thought of Mia and Robin and wondered what they were up to. They’d been special to her, and yet she’d put skating ahead of them. What she’d do now to have them in her life.
“Oh sure,” she lied. “But it’s not the same.”
“Do you want to come in? Instead of talking out here?”
“Sure,” she said without hesitation.
