Chapter 15
ELI
TRACK: Rosanne Cash, John Leventhal, “The Killing Fields”
I make myself stay away from Reese for a whole week. I know she needs space.
So do I. The shit going on inside of me—I can’t even name it. So of course, like the fully evolved modern man I am, I bury myself in work to avoid thinking of it.
There are meetings with staff and my sister and Blake.
Guest stays are up—way up. After the trailer for the new season of Chef’s Apprentice aired last week, we got a huge spike in reservations, the biggest we’d seen since Cassandra took over as CEO.
People are tagging our hotel alongside photos of billboards of the show in LA, and Augusta Lopez, the show’s favorite for winning, even did a video tour of her room for her vlog that went viral on socials.
I give a presentation to our directors about how this is playing out financially, and Cass talks about how projections are looking good for the renovation of the east wing to wrap up on time thanks to Reilly Contracting’s keen oversight.
She gushes about how their project manager Sarah is a dynamo.
“It looks like she’s actually going to pull this project in close to budget,” I say, impressed as hell.
Our brother Griff is there, unexpectedly.
Though he’s part owner of the hotel, he’s invited to all the meetings, but rarely attends.
Mostly because he’s off doing fuck knows what half the time.
Sometimes Cass patches him into meetings, and when he gets on the line it sounds like he’s calling from Mars.
Last week when we asked him where he was, he said “Tugul,” which Jude immediately googled and informed us—on mute—it was a remote village in Mongolia.
So seeing him here today wasn’t just a shock, but not as much of a shock as him asking me to go for coffee at Betsey’s after the meeting.
“I don’t think we’ve ever ‘gone for coffee’ together,” I said, once we’d placed our orders with the cute server, who spent a little too much time explaining her favorite item on the menu to Griffin. “Also, you’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?”
“Not currently,” Griff grunts as he takes a sip of his black coffee.
Between the three of us brothers, Griffin is the least charming, with his unkempt beard and permascowl. But that doesn’t seem to stop women from blushing when he so much as looks at them.
Not that he notices.
“Anyway,” he says, lowering his cup in his saucer with surprising care. “What the fuck is going on with you?”
My guts clench. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re all messed up over something, and I know it’s not just Kelly.”
For being a fucking brute, Griffin is surprisingly insightful. People say that about me too—the second half anyway. Maybe it’s in our genes. Which doesn’t explain why Jude can’t pick up on anything except his own pants after he’s done charming a woman into bed.
“I’m not messed up,” I say, scowling now and squirting a little cup of cream into my coffee, clinking my spoon around angrily.
“You are. Something’s going on and it’s eating you up inside. I suspect it’s a woman, except the brother I know is inept as fuck where they’re concerned.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Griffin’s already arguing back. “Do you remember Louisa?”
My brows lift. Louisa was my girlfriend my senior year of high school. “I haven’t thought about her in years.”
The server comes back with our food then, asking Griffin if he isn’t sure whether he’d like something else, then lingering with her hand on his shoulder.
Louisa and I split when she went to college on the other side of the country. I see her on social media sometimes—she has two kids and a Silicon-Valley husband.
It looks like a nice life.
When the server finally leaves, Griffin says, “You put the rest of us boys to shame with the way you doted on her.”
I shrug.
But Griffin’s not done. “Then later, you fell in love with a woman who had her head too far up her own ass to see you’re a good man. There were more in college too, right?”
“A couple,” I say.
“Well…” Griff shoves a forkful of eggs into his mouth like he hasn’t eaten in days. For all I know, he hasn’t. “You got that same dopey fuckin’ look on your face with all of them. Except it’s worse now than I’ve ever seen it. You look, brother, full-fucking gone. So who is she?”
I scoff, maybe a little too forcefully. “Just because I’m stressed doesn’t mean it’s over a woman.”
Griffin folds a full piece of bacon into his mouth where it seems to vanish with barely a couple of chews. “Who is she?” he repeats.
I lower my elbows on the table and run my fingers through my hair. “Why am I so fuckin easy to read?”
“Only to your family,” Griffin says, with surprising kindness.
The server comes back to fill my coffee, and this time, she also smiles at me.
Of course, all she makes me think about is one person.
“It’s Reese,” I say bluntly, when she leaves.
One of Griffin’s furry eyebrow lifts, but for a moment, he only eats.
Then he sits back, lowering his fork on his plate and tossing half his coffee back in a single sip.
“I didn’t mention her in that list,” he says after a moment.
“Because she’s the only one you never talked about.
I should have known she wrecked you the worst.”
I frown. “Kelly wrecked me the worst.”
“That right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
I remember, then, that Griffin was there when I ended it with Reese.
He’d just come back from… I don’t even remember where, and was helping me move into the Rolling Hills staff apartments.
I don’t think we said one word to each other the whole time we hauled my furniture—still with price tags on—up the stairs and into my place.
By the time we finished the job I was sweating, my head pounding as if I were hungover.
I was confused and pissed off. I’d just moved back to Vermont.
I was making a fresh start. But all I could think about was the girl I’d left behind.
The one who was supposed to be a distraction but had shocked me by how much I’d been consumed by her.
“I don’t have any beer,” I’d said to Griffin, who looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat despite the several trips up and down the stairs with heavy objects.
“I do,” he grunted.
We went to his place, a cabin in the forest a couple miles out of town, with a view of the Quince. A beer deep on the back porch, he said, “Tell me about it, Eli.”
So I did. “I think I made the worst mistake of my life,” I told him.
I went on and on about how messed up I was.
How confused. How my chest fucking ached.
“All I wanted to do was know her more. And more and more, like I could breathe her into my lungs. That’s so fuckin’ weird, I know.
But I’ve never felt like this before. Fuck, the way she sings… ”
He’d raised an eyebrow. “Kelly sings?”
It was only then I realized that whole time he thought I’d been talking about the woman I’d just divorced. I felt like shit then. Like I should have been more cut up about Kelly. Hell, I was. But in that moment, a whole broken marriage had paled compared to the intensity of three weeks with Reese.
“So what, you and Reese are together?” Griffin asks now. He remembers. Of course he fucking remembers.
“No.” I say it too fast.
But Griffin sets his meaty arms on the table and laces his fingers together. “That’s not what Cass says.”
“If you already know, why the fuck are you asking all these questions?”
I’m run through with irritation. “You know, sometimes I wish we were kids again and I could jump you.”
“You’d lose.”
That only makes me want to fight him more. Which is stupid because I think he’s trying to help me. Except he’s right. He’s not the gangly nerd he was as a kid. He’s a fucking beast, and though I’m no lightweight, he’d kick my ass.
“Only because of the jiujitsu.”
“And judo.”
I scowl, clanking my cup back in the saucer, making coffee slosh on the table. “It’s complicated,” I say finally.
“How’s it complicated? Either you’re seeing her or you’re not.”
I grit my teeth.
Griff says nothing, just stares at me unmoving. He knows I’m hedging.
“Okay fine!” I say. Fucking interrogation tactics. “We’re… fake dating.”
At this Griff furrows his brow. “What the hell does that mean?”
I lower my forehead into my palms. Then I sit up and explain the whole thing.
At the end, I’m surprised to feel a wash of relief. I know now why Reese told Nora. I hadn’t realized how hard it was to hang onto a secret so huge.
Griff purses his lips. “So are you still in love with Kelly?”
“I don’t—” I don’t know? Or I don’t think so?
“So why don’t you just ask Reese out for real?”
I laugh, though it’s not really funny. He acts like I said no. Also, the thought is absurd. “No. She hates me.”
“Why would someone who hates you agree to fake date you to make you look good with the ex-wife who broke your fucking heart?”
I falter slightly. I’ve purposefully avoided examining that question. “Because she’s a good person,” I say finally.
“That may be true. But she’s also a grown-ass woman.”
And I’m a grown-ass man.
I run my hand over my chin. The scrape of my stubble is loud in the sudden quiet between us, though the restaurant still thrums with its normal clinking of dishes and chatter of patrons. My pulse picks up speed. Could I really just ask Reese out?
The thought of going out with her for real—just us, unfiltered, unwatched—makes my heart thud. And the thought of her saying no—or worse, saying yes but me fucking it up—makes me feel ill. I can’t fuck up twice with her.
I’d lose her forever.
Griff finally takes pity on me and claps his hands on the table, as if he’s said all he could.