4. 4
Coco stands inside of her home, her eyes slits, glaring at me on her front porch. “You can only come in and stay if you’re quiet and you don’t poke fun.”
“Poke fun?” I step inside, holding the bag of new paints I promised Alice. “I’m here for Alice.”
She closes the door behind me, but I can feel her heat-driven laser eyes warming up my back. “She’s at Mom’s with Jude and the guys.”
My brothers, brother-in-law, and nieces are all rendezvousing at Mom’s and they didn’t invite me?
“It’s Thursday, Miles. You have a standing dinner invite,” she says as if I’ve spoken my thought out loud—which I didn’t. I’m sure of it.
“It’s Thursday? Already. But it was just Thursday.”
My sister smirks. “Yes, it was. One week ago.” She takes the bag of painting supplies from my hands and walks it over to her kitchen counter. “How did your talk with Lars go?”
I clear my throat. “Not well.” I made my request to Lars Simon days ago but had nothing good to share with my family. So I never mentioned it. “Lars won’t budge.”
“Maybe you could look for a different building.”
“Maybe.” But that single-story, multi-windowed, old structure has amazing lighting, great space, and it’s the perfect location.
“One that doesn’t involve Lars.” Her eyes go wide and she crosses her arms over her Twizzler T-shirt.
Leaning against the counter, I breathe out a laugh. “I wouldn’t complain about that.”
Coco opens up her refrigerator and pulls out three cans of Mountain Dew—her favorite. Then, she grabs a fancy dish that looks like a miniature trough from the very top of her cupboard, the one Aunt Ally gave her for her wedding, and fills the thing with Twizzlers. Her obsessions run deep—the girl is fanatic about licorice and caffeinated beverages. “Maybe you should open your own gallery.” Her brows lift and she pauses all busy work to peer at me, taking in my reaction.
I shake my head, though. “I’m not a curator. I’m an artist and a teacher. In fact, I might be a teacher who likes to dabble in art.”
”Miles.” She moans. ”Don”t sell yourself short.” Coco”s blue eyes cross to the living room, finding the watercolor of Alice I created years ago—long before she”d met her stepdaughter. Next to it is a brand new work of Lulabelle, her almost one-year-old. ”You are gifted,” she tells me.
I shuffle my feet, heat rising into my neck with the praise. I’m not here to beg for compliments. I know what I am.
“Listen,” she says, a hand on my forearm, “I’m happy to have you stay, but like I said, you can’t poke fun.”
I shake my head. “Coco, I don’t know why you think I’d make fun of you—”
“Meredith and Annie are coming over. It’s the last airing of our show.” She smiles despite the fact that she’s watching something she has to tell others to not make fun of.
“The dating show?”
“Yeah. Lane Jonas will be a married woman by the end of tonight.” She rubs her hands together, then drops them to her hips, looking at the spread she’s gotten ready.
Still, I’m thinking about what she’s said. Because I had to have heard that wrong. I was sure Meredith was exaggerating last week. My brows knit together—I can feel it, but I can’t stop it. None of this makes sense, and my face knows it. “You’re kidding, right? She gets married on the show? To some joker she barely knows?”
“Yeah. She’s living the celebrity life, and by the end of the show she’s a celebrity wife. Get it?”
The really lame title? Yeah, I get it. But I don’t say any of that because she’s asked me not to “poke fun.”
No worries, sis. I don’t need to stay to watch some girl—celebrity or not—marry someone who’s practically a stranger. That’s not my idea of entertainment.
There’s a knock at Coco’s front door, and on her way to answer, she holds out her hand, the remote in her grasp, and flicks the television on.
Her streaming provider has a dozen selections for her in view, but it must know what my sister watches on Thursday nights because Celebrity Life Celebrity Wife is already highlighted.
My cue to leave.
I hear Meredith and Annie greeting Coco when an ad for the show begins to play. A pretty blonde with a streak of blue peeking out from her long, silky hair catches my eye… just like last week.
Everything else in the room goes black. All I can see is her.
Thatgirl. That face with the steel blue eyes and rosy cheeks and flawless skin.
I know that face.
That face came into the gallery last week. She’s the girl.
I knew I recognized her, but I couldn’t figure out from where.
I blink and try to recall a ring on her left hand. But I can’t—one way or the other. I was too distracted by Lars. Too upset about Walt. Too sidetracked with the rejection of my building to look for a ring. I won’t lie—Lane Jonas is an exceptionally pretty girl. And while I’m not currently looking for anyone, I did notice her.I couldn’t help it.
“Miles,” Annie says, “you’re back. Did we convert you?”
Meredith giggles and sends me a happy wave.
“He’s going. I think he’s headed over to Mom’s.” Coco gathers up the Mountain Dews in the crook of her arm and holds the fancy dish of licorice with the other. She looks expectant my way, waiting for my confirmation.
But I know that girl—the one up on that screen. The one about to marry a guy she’s known—what, six weeks? I know her. Kind of, anyway. I was in the same exact room as the girl lighting up the television. And somehow that fact won’t allow me to leave.
“Um, actually—”
“You’re staying?” Coco says, one brow bouncing up to her hairline.
“I thought I might.” I clear my throat and tuck my arms in a cross. “If you don’t mind.”
She tilts her head, offering me a half smile. “Grab the popcorn.”
I pick up the bowl of popcorn as well as a drink for myself. I set everything on the coffee table with the other snacks and take a seat next to Coco on the couch. She’s already got the square glass table outfitted with cheese, crackers, and meats.
“You go all out, don’t you?” I say, looking over the spread.
“It is the finale,” Meredith says.
Annie rubs her hands together, eyes scanning from the table to the commercial ending on the TV. “Yep, Lane’s getting married, Miles. We have to celebrate.”
“Speaking of married—” Coco leans over, snagging two Twizzlers from Aunt Ally’s glass trough. “Mer, do you and Levi have a venue yet?”
“There’s a house on the lake we’re looking into renting.”
Another ad on the screen ends and the intro to the show begins. I’m grateful when Annie hushes my sister and friend so that I don’t have to.
The women watch and talk, but I keep quiet—nothing suspicious over here, ladies, just really into your dating show.
The two-hour episode is only fifteen minutes in when Lane—clearly not acting—leaves her scheduled interview and storms down the halls of the mansion she’s staying in. She stops, glimpsing nervously back at the camera, and pounds on a bedroom door.
She looks on the verge of tears. They’ve put her through the wringer. They grilled her with questions about the two remaining men and her feelings for each. I’m exhausted just watching it all play out.
A woman with short black hair and tanned skin opens the door Lane pounds on, her eyes dragging over to the camera.
“Ash,” Lane says. “We need to talk.” She swallows and peers once more at the cameraman. Tears shimmer on her cheeks, and my heart rate picks up speed.
“She’s regretting sending Mike away. I knew it,” my sister says, pulling up her feet until she’s sitting cross-legged on the couch.
I don’t comment, though—I don’t know who Mike is, and I’m too busy watching the girl who came into my gallery. It’s her, no doubt about it.
“Sure, come in,” the woman on the other side of the door says to Lane.
“That’s her manager,” Meredith whispers for my benefit.
I nod my understanding and turn my attention back to the screen.
“No cameras.” Lane looks back. We see her sad eyes again. She shakes her head, telling them not to come in with her.
But someone off-screen objects. “That won’t do,” some faceless man tells her.
“It’s going to have to do,” she says—this time with force. She lifts the tail of her shirt, showing a skiff of skin, and pulling out a little black box tucked into the waistband of her jeans. She flips a switch—and suddenly we can’t hear the rock star anymore.
“She turned off her mic,” Annie says, on the edge of her chair.
The camera scans to the hall, where a blond man walks up to the door. “Lane went to see Ash?” he asks the faceless person, and they confirm.
“Patrick,” Coco says, nose wrinkled. “She has no clue he’s been lying to her.” She groans. “I could never be a cameraman for a reality TV show. I’d spill all the beans of every jerk-a-saurus rex out there.”
I blink from my sister back to the screen, where the spineless—according to Coco—Patrick slits open the door of the private quarters of Lane Jonas’ friend.
Lane may have turned her mic off—but Patrick didn’t. And with the door ajar, the long-distance microphone from the cameraman is picking up every private word.
Patrick winks for the camera, then directs his ear into the room, listening in on the women’s conversation.
“Slime ball,” Annie says.
“I do not like him,” Meredith agrees. “Please tell me she does not end up with that one.”
The figures are in the distance, but Lane’s voice—no, her cries—come through. “I can’t do this, Ash.” She is a small image inside the room. Her face isn’t as clear as before, but her words are heard as well as captioned for the audience. We get it all.
“You agreed to this, Lane. Do you have any idea how much this show has done for your public image? If you bow out now—”
The camera scans back to Patrick, eavesdropping on the conversation. His brows knit and angry wrinkles cover his forehead. He mouths the words, “Bow out?” for the camera.
“Just pick one,” Ash tells her.
“How? I don’t love either of them.”
A shrill gasp sounds from all three of the very real, live, tangible women sitting in my sister’s living room, making me jump in place.
Meredith stares Coco down. “So, that’s why she’s never said it. They said she was waiting, but—”
“So, you stay married for a few months, and then you both go your separate ways,” Ash says.
“But they’ve both told me that they love me. I—I can’t do that to someone. I can’t hurt them like that. You kept saying it would come—but it never did. I don’t love these men, Ash. This isn’t fair to them.”
“Either way, tell them now or tell them later, someone is getting hurt, Lane. Can’t we help your image first?”
“But isn’t it better to be hurt before a wedding ceremony?”
Lane is still crying when the camera zooms back to Patrick. The man”s jaw is tight, and his eyes slits. He doesn”t look hurt; he looks pissed.
The next half an hour my skin crawls as I watch this piece of work find Lane’s option number two—some guy named Broc—and tell him exactly what he witnessed, with his own little flair on the story. Neither man is happy with the news, but it’s Patrick who creates, lays out, and convinces Broc of a plan to get her back.
“Get her back?” I say, repeating the doofus’s words. “Because she doesn’t love him? Because she’s choosing to be honest with them?”
Coco turns to look at me, one of her brows hikes up on her head.
“You’re so in tune with your sensitive side, Miles,” Meredith says, her smile small and kind.
I’m not sure what to say to that. I think I do see and feel things differently at times—it’s the artist in me. But then there’s only one way to see this guy, and it isn’t good.
He’s devised a mean, spiteful plan to make a fool of her—on national TV.
And that’s exactly what he does.
It’s painful to watch and yet I spend the next hour rooted in my seat, flinching as the two men lie and deceive her about the future, about their intentions, knowing that she’s being torn up inside with the truth. And every time she opens her mouth to tell one of them that she’s not ready for a proposal, they kiss her, or they hurry off, or they mention an ill parent or a dead dog—something painful and sad that makes her shut right up. It’s clear she doesn’t want to deliver more blows, more pain, and it’s also clear they know that. They pick their moments carefully. They calculate all of their words to orchestrate hers.
We’re all quiet and watching when she exits her room for the last time, ready to approach each man, one at a time. One last pinning. Normally, I guess, this is the point where she’d tell one goodbye and the other that a wedding party awaited them.
Only this season, no wedding party waits for an expectant bride and groom. There will not be any such ceremony.
Who thought this stuff up?
“Are you ready?” Ash asks her, a small shake of her head but a supporting hand on Lane’s back.
“I’m ready. Time to say goodbye. I’m not who they need. They both deserve someone all in.” She looks at Ash again. “That isn’t me.”
I swallow, knowing that Patrick will have something up his sleeve. He has for the last fifty-three minutes of this show.
Lane walks on the sand of the beach. She’s told she’s headed toward Patrick. But when she arrives, Patrick and Broc stand waiting for her, hands in pockets, eyes on the girl, scowls on each of their faces.