Chapter 8
Getting kidnapped on my wedding day: not ideal.
Not going on a honeymoon: truly fine.
Having my new husband stop sleeping and sneak out almost every night since I officially became Lily Hill: really, really bad.
In fairness to Jameson, I am tired. I’m exceptionally tired. I was less tired after I pulled all-nighters to study for finals in college. I was less tired after my shifts at The Membership. I was even less tired at points in Jameson’s cottage.
Now I am eerily, all-consumingly tired. I’ve quickly gotten into the habit of taking an afternoon nap, and I can rarely make it past ten. It’s like a switch flips. I’m fine, but I could sleep, and then I’m so tired that it seems apocalyptic. I’m so tired that the thought of sitting upright feels like torture. I’m so tired that I can barely get through washing my face and brushing my teeth before I need to be horizontal.
The first few times I feel that exhaustion, I sleep until the next morning and wake up with Jameson kissing my temple and offering me hot tea. Maybe that’s a weird beverage choice this far into the summer, when everything outside is unsurvivable but in the sweet air-conditioned atmosphere of Mason’s penthouse, hot tea is the perfect thing.
Jameson happy is the perfect thing.
This seems horrible to say, even to think, but?—
For those first few nights, I want to believe it’s real.
Even if Malcolm Walsh is still out there, and my grandfather, and even if we have no idea what they might do next, I want to believe that everything inside the house is okay. It’s probably me at my most naive, but I want the fairy tale to have a kernel of truth.
Maybe the heroine’s mother isn’t dead. Maybe a wedding—and love—can repair the hero’s broken heart.
I know it’s weak, but I’m honestly exhausted, and for a little while, I let myself believe that our wedding day stitched up the broken parts of Jameson and let him move on with his life.
With our life. The life we’re going to make together. That we’re already making, if you think about it. Having our own house and a solid five-year-plan is also part fairy tale. We didn’t need those things to fall in love, and we don’t need those things to be living.
But then more nights go by, and I start waking up at night to an empty bed. Jameson isn’t anywhere in the penthouse.
He seems so happy to bring me tea in the morning that it sends a chill through the pit of my stomach. His mask is much stronger than it was the night he kidnapped me.
Maybe it should scare me, but…
It breaks my heart.
Deep down, I know he’s not hiding a bunch of shocking criminal activity from me. Whatever Jameson does at night is probably illegal, or at least some of it is—that’s not what I’m talking about.
I mean?—
I’m not afraid of him. I’m not afraid of the man who brings me tea every morning with his wedding band on his finger, or the man who spends time every day having full conversations with his bird, or the man who holds his baby nephew so gently. Jameson is fully invested in his conversations with Robin, and that’s the man who lies next to me in bed every night before he tiptoes out of the room and goes?—
Somewhere in the city, I think.
What I’m afraid of is the mask itself. The happier Jameson seems, the more worried I get. It might not be entirely fair for me to worry when he’s working so hard to seem okay, but it’s just not right. The act is perfect, and that means it’s just an act. I’ve seen what happens when the nightmares get the better of him. I’ve seen how badly he’s been hurt.
And healing that with a wedding is just a fantasy.
I don’t know how many nights he’s gone before I feel him get out of the bed. He’s so careful not to wake me up that it’s lucky I feel him at all. Jameson moves cautiously around the bedroom, pulling on clothes. The door opens, then closes. His footsteps pad down the hall.
I count to ten and follow him.
Not toward the elevator. I won’t be able to see anything from there, obviously. I go toward the slider that leads to the enormous balcony.
It’s already open. There’s someone on the balcony.
It’s not Jameson. It’s his brothers. Both of them are wearing pajama pants, and Mason has Robin in a carrier. He sways slightly from side to side.
“—nothing,” Gabriel says. “Must’ve gone out the other way. Can we?—”
“No,” Mason answers. “He knows how to get out without being seen. And he’s not afraid to bribe the man on duty.”
“We shouldn’t have taught him how to do that.”
“We?” Mason pats Robin’s back. “I had nothing to do with bribes.”
“Sure,” Gabriel says.
“I didn’t. He might’ve learned that all by himself. He’s very smart.”
“I know.” Gabriel’s shoulders droop.
I choose that moment to push the slider open a little farther and step out onto the balcony. Both brothers turn to look at me. Neither one seems particularly surprised to see me.
“Hey, Lily,” Gabriel says. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Neither could Jameson.” I shut the door behind me and join Mason and Gabriel at the balcony. Below is Central Park at night. Pools of light waver behind leaves and fall on the walking trail. From up here, the park looks like a fairy tale. I can personally attest to the fact that it’s not always like that. It wasn’t that long ago that we nearly got stabbed. “You couldn’t, either?”
Gabriel grimaces. “I had a feeling.”
“That Jameson might be sneaking out? Was that big for him in his more rebellious years?”
“More rebellious?” Mason huffs a laugh.
“So…” I lean against the balcony, look out, and remember that I’m pregnant. It’s such a weird thing to keep remembering. That’s why I’m so tired, and so…hungry. Yes. I’m hungry. Being awake means being hungry, apparently. “You guys knew he was leaving? Or you just guessed?”
“Figured it out a few nights ago,” Mason answers. “I got up with Robin while Jameson was leaving. I don’t think he knew I was there.”
“He’s back every day before I wake up.” More worry tightens my throat. “I don’t think he’s sleeping very much. It feels like he’s awake all night, every night.”
“Well, that…” Gabriel sounds like he might say would be impossible. “That sounds like him.”
“Has he always had trouble sleeping like this?”
The water in the pool slaps against the side, rippling with the breeze. Traffic moves down below, headlights bouncing on concrete. There’s no sign of Jameson. Nobody leaves the parking garage and makes a quick path down the sidewalk. Nobody’s down on the street right now at all.
“Not always,” Gabriel says softly. “It must have started when our parents died. I remember him sleeping in a lot before that happened, and now…”
“Now he sleeps in, but only if he’s been up all night.” Mason’s not bothering to hide the concern in his voice. He pats Robin’s back again and then his big hand rubs in a slow circle. “And I’m a jackass, because I don’t actually know if he’s sleeping when he comes home. All I know is that he’s in his room with the door shut.”
“He’s not doing that.” I fold my hands together, then unfold them. “Sleeping when he gets home, I mean. His side of the bed is always cold when I wake up, and he’s showered and dressed. Maybe he, like, naps for a little while, but then it’s time to go to the office.”
The silence between the three of us isn’t really silence. It never is, in New York City. There’s traffic below and a distant siren and the wind, and the guilt between Jameson’s brothers is almost audible, like the buzz of a lightbulb on its last legs.
“I take it this is a bad sign,” I say, when I’ve waited as long as I could. “I mean, it’s obviously a bad sign.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel says. “I would agree with that.”
“Lily.” Mason’s tone is soft and careful. I think that’s partially for the baby and partially for me. “Has Jameson mentioned anything about his plans?”
“No. He hasn’t said anything to me about it. It seems obvious that he—you know. He doesn’t want me to know he’s gone. Otherwise he’d just tell me.” It feels very intimate to be having this conversation with Jameson’s brothers in the middle of the night, but it’s also a relief that other people care about him as much as I do. I knew that already. His family came together to throw him a wedding while he could barely move from being so beaten up. “We’ve been through a lot together in a pretty short time. But he doesn’t want me to be part of this.”
Gabriel makes a noncommittal sound. “I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe he does want you to be part of it, but—” He shrugs. “I’d go out there with him myself if he asked. Is this about the judge, do you think?”
The last question seems directed to both me and Mason.
“The judge is making noise at the court,” Mason says.
“Noise?” That has my heart racing. “Like, more charges?”
“More charges. Old charges. My lawyers have managed to hold him off for the time being. I don’t think your grandfather wants to go public.”
“Good call, because then we’d tell everyone how he sent a man to kidnap me.” Robin fusses when my voice gets loud, so I murmur a quick sorry. Mason bounces a bit more enthusiastically, and the baby settles. “Should we do that anyway? Just…announce? That he’s the worst person ever?”
A thoughtful silence.
“I don’t know. Not when Jameson’s…like this,” Gabriel finishes. He looks at Mason, his brow furrowed. “You don’t think he’d go to the judge’s house, do you?”
“I think it’s a mistake to try and predict what he’ll do.”
“Really, the only thing he’s talked about is the kidnapper. Walsh. And the Good Samaritan.”
“The what?” Gabriel says.
In all the rush and bustle of the wedding day, there hadn’t been time to sit down with everyone and tell them all exactly what happened, minute by minute. Walsh had escaped, and nobody had been able to find them. Jameson has every reason not to trust the cops, and frankly, I’m with him. And there wasn’t an opening that seemed right to say by the way, there was a second person when I got kidnapped who came out of nowhere with a lead pipe. I did tell Jameson, but he wasn’t, like, helping murder me, so he probably shouldn’t get arrested, although I’m open to other ideas on that.
I tell Mason and Gabriel about the Good Samaritan.
“That sounds suspicious as fuck,” Gabriel sings quietly.
“He did hit Walsh with the pipe. That’s a Good Samaritan thing to do from my perspective,” I tell him.
“Do you have any idea why he helped you?” Mason asks. “Did he say anything?”
“No. He ran away so fast that it was like he was never there. And I’ve never seen him before. I haven’t seen him since, either. But I did tell Jameson about him, so maybe he’s trying to get information on Walsh that way.”
“Great.” The breeze ruffles Gabriel’s hair. He watches Central Park and takes a deep breath in, then lets it out slow. “So Jameson is out there searching for a contract killer and a guy who sounds like a comic book villain while we wait to see if our little brother makes it home for breakfast.”
“What did you do before? If…” I think of Jameson as a teenager, staying awake for days on end. “If you think his trouble sleeping and the sneaking out started when your parents passed away, you had to have done something, or—or had a plan.”
Mason curses under his breath. “No excuse,” he says, almost to himself. “I kept my phone on. That’s what I did. When I realized Jameson was—he was?—”
“When we realized he was having trouble.” Gabriel picks up from Mason easily, like he’s thought of this conversation many times. Or maybe they’ve had this conversation many times. “School was rough on Jameson.”
“It was?”
“High school,” Gabriel amends. “It was hard to keep him there, most days. He was grieving. We all were, and—” His eyes shine, but he swipes at them with a knuckle. “He was angry. I thought it was getting better when he started college, but I was wrong. He had more excuses to be away from us, so it took longer to realize that he was…escalating.”
“To getting arrested?”
“Stuff like that, yeah.” Gabriel’s lips press into a thin line. “We both kept our phones on. It wasn’t just Mason. We both—we tried to be there when he needed to get out of jail. That only got more frequent over the years.”
“Is that what you’re doing now? Keeping your phones on? What if my grandfather has people looking for him? What if they get to him first?” What have I been thinking, letting this go on? “I think we should go after him.”
“I don’t know if he’d handle that well,” says Gabriel.
“Someone’s going to have to go with him eventually,” I point out. “Even if he’s mad about it. He could get hurt.”
There’s a moment when I think I might fully burst into tears. My throat pinches and my eyes sting and my face gets hot, but I breathe through the swell of emotion and try to let it out in a measured way.
The pregnancy hormones are no joke.
Loving Jameson is no joke. That part is not like a fairy tale. Fairy tales never tell you that love is strong enough to snap you in two.
“He could get seriously injured,” I say, when I finally have control over my voice again. “He could get killed. If the choice is between going public about my grandfather or going after him, then?—”
“It could put you at risk.” Mason looks me in the eye. The green of his eyes is dark in the ambient light from the city. “If your grandfather reacts poorly to an act of aggression on our part.”
“It’s his fault.” The anger I feel—the hurt—is just as strong as my love for Jameson. “He’s the one who did all these things, and he didn’t have to.”
“I agree.” Gabriel pats my arm. “Maybe it’s better if we split the difference.”
“How would we do that?”
He smiles, his teeth flashing in the dark. “I’m well-connected. The right words in the right ears will tell your grandfather that we haven’t forgotten what he did.”
“What about Jameson?”
“We’ll have to be ready to go get him. Go with him, if that’s what it comes to.” Mason sways, his hands on Robin’s carrier. “Just like old times.”
“I wish you had a dance studio.”
Both of the brothers stare at me.
“I’m a dancer. That’s my thing. I used to sneak out of my grandfather’s house to dance at a club. On a hoop suspended in the air, most of the time. And I really miss it. It’s a great way to relieve monumental stress.”
“Wow.” Gabriel’s eyebrows go up. “Why didn’t you say so before? Maybe you could teach Jameson. Change his life. Keep him off the streets through the power of dance.”
We all share a laugh, but it dies down into worried silence. A siren wails, fading away into the distance.
I would teach Jameson to dance if I thought it would help.
What if nothing will?