Chapter 11
Saylor
Forrest drives like a man who learned on dirt roads and never fully adjusted to the concept of lanes.
His left hand is loose on the wheel of the rented pickup, his right elbow hanging out the window despite the fact it’s fifty degrees and the wind is turning his knuckles pink.
The truck bed is loaded with everything Home Depot had to offer at seven in the morning on a Wednesday—paint rollers, drip cloths, a power drill, three different grades of sandpaper, wood filler, a shop vac, and a cooler full of water bottles and gas-station jerky because Forrest insisted that “you can’t renovate on an empty stomach, that’s how people lose fingers. ”
“Contract work. She’s paying me.”
“Contractor rates.”
“That’s what I said.”
“And you called me at six in the morning to help because—”
“Because you’re my friend and I asked nicely.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘Hawk, get up. I need your hands.’ And then you hung up. That’s not asking nicely. That’s a hostage negotiation without the negotiation.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Here I am.” He reaches into the cooler wedged between us and pulls out a stick of jerky. Tears it with his teeth. “Because I’m a good person and also because Koda is with her mother, and Sora kicked me out of the house so she could write in peace. Apparently I’m a distraction.”
“Because you can’t keep your hands off of her,” I say. “Hard to write a book when you’re on your back with your legs in the air.”
“That’s the love of my life you’re talking about.”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m on her side. Leave that poor girl alone and let her work. It’s exhausting being your girlfriend. Or…wait. Fiancée now?”
Forrest smiles. “I got the ring. Mr. Cooper, sort of reluctantly, gave me his permission. I just have to figure out how to ask her.”
“Will. You. Marry. Me. Four words, mate. Not that complicated.”
“You’re about as romantic as a cactus, know that?”
Forrest has the grin that made him one of Rina’s most requested escorts before Sora came along and retired him—easy, warm, the kind of smile that makes people feel like they’ve been friends with him for years when they’ve known him for minutes.
He’s wearing a flannel with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and work boots that actually have mud on them, because Forrest is the only person I know in New York City who owns work boots with real mud.
Ranch kid from Wyoming turned fancy law student.
Spent his childhood moving cattle and mending fences before trading it all for Manhattan, which, when you think about it, involves a similar skill set—reading the herd, keeping things calm, knowing when to get out of the way.
“So what exactly are we doing when we get there?” he asks.
“Assessing. Cleaning. Starting whatever we can. She described it as a time capsule. Apparently her parents left the country six years ago, nobody’s touched it since. I’m not sure if this is a light decorative facelift, or an episode of Fixer Upper, but we’re about to find out.”
“And this needs to be done by when?”
“Next week. Celeste is still fighting for custody of her friend’s unborn baby. A caseworker’s coming to evaluate the home to determine if Celeste can take care of a child.”
“What the hell? Kind of intrusive, isn’t it? Nobody did a home visit after Koda was born.”
“Your dead best friend’s mother wasn’t trying to take the baby from you.
It’s a battle between two women and two legal teams at this point, and to be honest…
” I hate the words I’m about to say. “On paper, Celeste and Eleanor are kind of replicas. Wealthy, every amenity and resource at their fingertips. It’s not a question of providing for the baby, now it’s a question of who is better suited.
Eleanor had a baby. She’s done this before.
Eleanor lives in the suburbs. Eleanor doesn’t travel much—”
“So Celeste is screwed.”
I nod. “That’s the gist of it. We need an edge. This house might be that edge.”
Forrest lets out a low whistle. “Wow, man. You’re in deep already. You’re fixing up a whole-ass house in under a week for a custody case you’re not involved in?”
“No. We’re fixing up a five-thousand-square-foot house in under a week for a custody case we’re not involved in.”
Forrest grumbles. “I need new friends. Ones that ask for fewer favors.”
The highway opens up north of the city, the skyline shrinking in the rearview as Westchester spreads out around us—greener, quieter, the kind of suburban sprawl that looks like someone designed it specifically to make Manhattan feel like a mistake.
The houses get bigger. The lawns get wider.
Each driveway showcases vehicles that look collectible.
“How’s Celeste doing with all of this?” Forrest asks. “I’ve been meaning to check in on her, but Sora and I have been flat-out with work, and Koda’s been with us every other week, so—”
“She’s struggling. She canceled on me Saturday and has barely been responsive since. I think the weight of it finally caught up.”
“That tracks. She’s always been a keep-it-together-until-she-can’t type.
One of those people who runs at full speed and then just stops.
” He pauses. “When I’d take her to events, she’d be perfect all night—charming, funny, totally in control.
Then she’d get in the car after and go completely silent.
Like she’d used up every drop of energy performing and had nothing left. ”
“That’s exactly it. Like every conversation drains her battery, and she’s operating on fumes. I keep asking myself what could help her relax. She appears to only take breaks from work to attend funerals.”
“Celeste doesn’t relax. How can she with her ex breathing down her neck?”
I take a deep breath, trying not to sound too inquisitive. “Yeah, what do you know about the bloke? Is he a problem?”
“I only met Greg once. The night I met Sora, actually. We were at a wedding of one of their mutual friends.”
“What’s the verdict?”
“Total prick.” Forrest’s jaw tightens. “He’s the kind of guy who diminishes you in a room full of people and then acts confused when you’re upset. He probably jacks off to his clever one-liners that he thinks makes people feel small. The ego on the guy, I swear.”
“Why’d they divorce?”
Forrest glances my way. “Why do you think?”
“He cheated?”
“He made cheating a sport. Qualified it into the Olympics. Won a fucking gold medal.”
A kindling of rage begins to smoke inside my chest. I’m glad Celeste is no longer with Greg—for more reasons that I can admit to at the moment. But the fact that he hurt her pisses me off. I’ll let that fire simmer and then explode in due time.
“Geez. Do you think she’s still hung up on him?”
Forrest glances at me. A slow glance, the kind that takes a detour through amusement before arriving at the point. “Why are you so concerned with who Celeste is hung up on?”
“Professional curiosity.”
“Professional curiosity. Right.” He chews his jerky with the deliberate patience of a man who has all the time in the world to watch me dig this hole.
“I think Celeste is someone who’s always trying to keep pace with Greg.
He gets a new girlfriend, she books one of us.
He shows up at an event, she has to show up looking better.
It’s not love. It’s competition. And she’s losing because she doesn’t realize the game is all in her head.
And Greg doesn’t help. He has this weird possessive thing over Celeste.
He doesn’t want her, but he doesn’t want anyone else to want her.
It’s crippling. She needs to get away from him, except they co-own her company together. ”
“You got all of this from like four dates you went on with her?”
He shoots me another look. “You’re renovating her home after one date with her. And that was a date to a funeral no less.”
“Fair. So you think she doesn’t love him, she’s just stuck, unable to move on?”
“She’s not stuck. She’s moved. Just not on. More like sideways.” Another bite. “Why? You’re that interested?”
“I’m renovating her house, Hawk. That’s all you need to know.”
“That doesn’t tell me much.”
“Exactly.”
“You called me at six a.m. on a Wednesday to help you renovate a woman’s house.
A woman you are asking about with the specific intensity of a man who is definitely not just renovating her house.
” He looks at me flatly. “I’ve seen that look before.
In my mirror. About eight months ago, when I was telling myself the exact same lie about Sora. ”
I let that sit for an entire mile of silence.
“Celeste’s nervous about the whole thing,” I say, shifting the subject slightly. “The baby. Being a mother. She told me she doesn’t know what maternal even looks like because her parents were kind of absent.”
Forrest nods slowly. “Hannah and I weren’t exactly planning on parenthood either. You know that. I was twenty-two and terrified and had no idea what I was doing.”
“What made you ready?”
“Nothing. You’re never ready. That’s the whole trick.
Everyone’s out here waiting to feel qualified and the feeling never comes.
You just start doing it and figure out the rest while you’re knee-deep in diapers and existential dread.
” He smiles—not the easy one, the deeper one.
The one that shows up when he talks about Koda.
“But the thing is, the fact that it scares you? That’s the qualification.
If it didn’t scare you, you’d be a sociopath.
Celeste being terrified of motherhood is the most maternal thing about her. ”
“That’s basically what I told her.”
“Great minds.” He tips the jerky stick at me like he’s toasting.
“Seriously though—Celeste is going to be a good mom. She’s intense and she’s a perfectionist and she’ll probably have this baby dressed for the red carpet by the time it can crawl.
But she loves hard. You can tell. Anyone who’s spent ten minutes with her can tell. ”
Hawk is right. I can most definitely tell.