Chapter 17
Kaelee
Kaelee woke in an unfamiliar room. Not the hotel she’d been in with Cherie.
Not her apartment. Panic started to bubble in her stomach, along with the remnants of too much wine.
Her head was thudding as she stumbled out of the bed and fumbled for a light.
A note on the nightstand next to her was propped up next to a tall travel mug and a bottle of acetaminophen.
Kae,
Don’t think about leaving before we talk. Water. Pain relief. Use it.
Toni
P.S. You smell like booze and vomit. Shower. Clean clothes. Come upstairs.
Shit! She was at Toni and Addie’s townhouse.
An oversized Vienna College sweatshirt was haphazardly folded next to a pair of sweatpants.
Next to them was a plastic bag that had a stickie on it saying “gross clothes in here.” Kaelee washed down a couple of acetaminophen with half the water there and went to shower.
While she was standing under the hot water, she remembered Greta calling after Kaelee had messaged her.
Kaelee rested her head on the wall of the shower, trying to remember how much of an ass she’d been.
The parts she remembered were mortifying enough that after her shower she went out and grabbed her phone, which someone had kindly put on a charger.
She scanned the text conversation as well as the app before sending a new message.
Lee: I am so sorry about last night.
Marie: T said you were alive and at her place.
Lee: I am. I shouldn’t have reached out. Rough night.
Marie: You are my friend. Calling friends is fine.
Lee: I can see our messages. How bad was the call?
Marie: Doesn’t matter. Still my friend. Still worried when you were hurting. Sorry/not sorry about calling T.
Lee: It’s ok. Does she know?
Marie: Enough. Talk to her as much as you need. I’m ok with it. We will need to talk to E too.
Kaelee flinched at the thought of telling her agent she had crawled into a bottle last night.
She wasn’t embarrassed about having sex with Greta, but being drunk was another thing.
Kaelee wasn’t the sort of person to get drunk or stupid like that.
She had, however, maybe snapped a little under pressure.
Lee: I am so sorry about all of it. I don’t do that. I swear.
Marie: Are you safe? That’s all I care about.
Lee: I’ll let them know that none of what happened with us was after you knew me as me.
Marie: I trust you. Call me later. Please.
Lee: Will do.
Right now, Kaelee wished she could call Greta right this minute, but she wasn’t going to have that conversation in Toni and Addie’s home, not when there was a risk that they could hear her.
Feeling like a disobedient child, Kaelee got dressed and went to find Toni or Addie, not sure which woman was home.
When she was a teen, she hadn’t ever gotten drunk or made an ass of herself.
Doing it at almost thirty stung her pride.
Failing to eat, drinking on an empty stomach … there were a number of stupid-assed things she’d done the night before. Explaining how it had happened didn’t undo her mortification that it had happened in the first place.
Toni looked up at Kaelee as she walked into the living room. She was seated in a rather Victorian sofa with fringe under it. A stack of books sat next to her, along with a notebook. When she set aside the book she was actively reading, a fluffy cat looked up and hissed from her lap.
At the sound, Toni ruffled the cat’s fur and said, “Take no offense at his drama. Oscar Wilde is a grump. I’m not even sure he likes me.
” She stared down at the massive cat, a Maine coon or something similar, with a fond look.
“He likes Addie. Sometimes Em. He accepts my love grudgingly when they aren’t here. ”
The cat looked perfectly content in Toni’s lap, so Kaelee had her doubts about the other woman’s interpretation of his opinions. It certainly seemed like the cat’s objection was simply about having cuddle time interrupted.
Kaelee stood there awkwardly, not sure what she was to be doing right now. What she wanted was to call a ride and get out of here without chatting. “Addie’s not home?”
“She is. She went to read in our room when she heard the shower turn off.” Toni motioned toward the kitchen.
“She made you a cup of tea before she left. She says coffee will be too harsh for your stomach as drunk as you were. I asked for a little privacy to talk to you, so you didn’t feel like we were ganging up on you. ”
Mutely Kaelee went and grabbed the cup of tea, added milk, and came to sit in the living room to face her former boss, now friend. Finally, she said, “Thank you both. You didn’t need to bring me here, but I appreciate it.”
“Oh, that’s not what our editor said when she texted me in the middle of the night in a panic.” Toni stared at Kaelee, looking a little too much like a surly mother for Kaelee’s comfort.
“Right, well … I had a thing happen. Bad decisions were made and—”
“Cut the bullshit.” Toni sat forward on the sofa, spilling the irate cat out of her lap in the process. As the cat headed out of the room, Toni ordered, “Talk.”
“You know I don’t talk about my past—”
“I do, but I also know that I had to crawl out of my cozy bed with my naked woman in it, and go out into the cold weather to fetch your drunk ass. Then I had to watch Addie fuss and bother over you instead of crawling back into my bed.”
“Was she still naked?” Kaelee joked.
Toni leveled a look that would once have been intimidating—okay, it was still a little intimidating—before replying, “No, she was not naked then. I’m not a fool.
She was all wrapped up in a fluffy little jacket and pink sweatpants and …
that’s not the damn point. Don’t try to distract me, Kaelee.
You don’t drink like that. I’d know if you did.
My father was a founding member of the drunk assholes club.
You, Kaelee, are not. So what happened?”
Toni crossed her arms and waited until Kaelee relented.
“My father heard about my book deal, and he called me. I didn’t cope.” Kaelee sipped her tea, trying to decide just how much to share. At least this was slightly easier than the other part of the conversation, the part about why Greta was the one Kaelee called. “He doesn’t approve.”
“You never mention your family. Did you talk to Em about them yet? Did you tell Greta?”
“No. I told you I haven’t spoken to any of them since I left roughly a decade ago.
I didn’t think he even knew how to reach me.
” Kaelee wrapped her hands around the mug and hoped upon hope that she wasn’t going to fall apart in front of Toni.
She probably had done so last night, but at least the memories of it were hazy.
“He’s not a fan of women who love women. ”
“Are you in danger?” Toni asked, cutting to the chase.
“No…? I don’t think so. Probably not?”
“Did he threaten you?”
That was a much harder question. Kaelee rolled over the things she could retain from that call. She was sober, but fear could be just as circuit frying as wine. “He told me to put a stop to the book. He’s … embarrassed by it.”
Toni looked contemplative. “We’re going to keep in touch about this.
I think you need to talk to Em and to Charlie.
She’s your publicist, right?” Kaelee nodded and Toni continued, “Do you understand? You need to talk to them. You will do so. Probably Greta or Em first. But you also need to keep me in the loop. You’re in my wedding.
That is, like, legitimate friendship, so it means I get to fucking worry over you. Clear?”
“You don’t need to—”
“I said no bullshit.” Toni scowled at her. “If this wasn’t a big deal, you wouldn’t have gotten skunk drunk, and I wouldn’t have had to go peel you off a hotel bathroom floor.”
“Fine.” Kaelee felt tears threaten again. “I don’t want you to think I’m a fuckup.”
“Dealing with other people’s drama is not how we define ourselves. Do you think I’m a fuckup?” Toni stared at her now, as if weighing things Kaelee couldn’t see.
“Obviously not.”
“I sold my books because my dad took another mortgage on my mother’s house, ran up debt, and died.
I got lucky and The Whitechapel Widow did well, but it was a Hail Mary pass for me.
” Toni held her gaze as she told her this.
“So I’m not going to judge you because your father hates queers.
I will point out right now that I hate him by default.
I have no time for homophobes or bad fathers. ”
Kaelee nodded. “Thank you.”
Just as she relaxed, though, Kaelee caught a look on Toni’s face, and her throat tightened. The other shoe was about to hit the floor—or maybe kick Kaelee’s ass. Either way, she tensed in anticipation.
“Finding out that you fucked our editor, on the other hand, I’m feeling a bit judgmental about,” Toni said, sounding far surlier than Kaelee liked.
She flinched. “Do I get to plead the Fifth or something?”
“No.” Toni sighed. “What in the hell were you thinking, Kae? You can’t … you shouldn’t … Seriously. That’s not cool. What were you thinking?”
“That she’s gorgeous,” Kaelee said sheepishly, ducking her head at the confession. When Toni said nothing else, Kaelee looked at her. “I swear to God, Toni, that I had no idea she was my editor.”
“My editor, too.”
“Right. Yours or my editor. She was in town and there’s an app—”
“You slept with Greta when she was here? When?” Toni gave her a strange look. “September? Don’t say September.”
“September.”
“Damn it. She came here because I refused the contract. If I’d have just sold her the books, she wouldn’t have come to DC, and then this”—Toni waved a hand at Kaelee—“clusterfuck could’ve been avoided.
” Toni slouched back in her seat. “Kaelee, you cannot hurt Greta. You need to understand that. She’s a good person, good heart.
You can’t just treat her like the women you fuck. ”
“I know.”