Twenty-Three Sicily
Twenty-Three
Sicily
2028
Sicily has slept well in the lush villa bed, draped in linens with a thread count in the thousands and cooled by the sea breeze coming through an open window. She and Kent woke to blue skies and flowers in full bloom in the courtyard gardens.
Sicily completes the morning meditation that has become routine for her and prepares for a run along the hotel’s grounds.
“Do you want to come?” she asks Kent. They’re trying to make a habit of being active together.
“Sorry.” He rubs his face. “Still waking up. I’ll join you in a bit if I manage not to be a slowpoke.”
She nods and kisses him on the cheek, trying to brush it off as she puts on her shoes. Maybe it was too early in their relationship to bring him to a major event like this; he seemed strangely quiet last night after Miranda dropped by.
“I forgot you were on Kidz Klub ,” Kent had said. “It was so long ago.”
It felt like a different life, she had agreed, and it was true. These days she just tries to remember the fun of it, especially when she tells Liberty stories about the unhinged antics back then of Auntie Germaine and Auntie Miranda.
Remembering those days makes it feel all the more important to put the Hugo/Germaine awkwardness behind her and sort out her feelings later. It was right of Germaine to tell her the truth. Despite all the grief Sicily suffered as a consequence of those actions, if she’s honest with herself, she knows Germaine never intended to hurt her. And they’re good now—Sicily and Hugo and Noah—they’ve made their peace with the past. Hearing the truth doesn’t really change anything now.
Except for one thing.
Just before heading out the door, Sicily scrolls through her contacts and unblocks Kendra’s number.
Hey , Sicily texts. Are you free next week? Do you think we could talk?
Then she zips her phone in her pocket and walks into the sunshine.
Sicily is determined to have a great time today, which is why she’s following her endorphin-boosting routine even though it makes her knees ache. The only thing the Cove doesn’t have is a gym—or, at least, one that she can locate on its enormous property—otherwise she’d opt for an elliptical trainer. The best kind of exercise is low impact.
Sicily laughs to herself as she heads through the gardens and makes her way to a path along the beach. She’s lived a high-impact life since childhood, in every sense, and bears the physical and psychic scars to prove it. Still, this is a new chapter for her: her forties. She can still sing; she can still slink sensually around a stage and hear audiences roaring along to her lyrics. In fact, she performed at the Grammys this year—one of the select few artists who’s been invited to appear in their teens, twenties, thirties, and forties. Sicily fully intends to be performing there in her fifties and sixties, too, living proof that there’s a way to mature as an artist—and a woman—in this industry.
The boardwalk path stretches all across the Cove’s beachfront property, and by the time Sicily turns for the stairs back up the bluff, she’s worked up quite a sweat and is feeling much better. She loops back up around the front of the hotel for a cool-down; she still has about an hour before she and Miranda are due in Germaine’s suite for hair and makeup.
And ... they’ll be civil. They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.
There’s an enormous stone fountain in the center of the grand, circular hotel drive and several off to the sides, in the paths, overgrown with greenery, that lead back to the villas and gardens. She leans against one of the fountains to stretch her quads and watches with interest as other guests begin to arrive for the prewedding fete. There are people from the most elite tax brackets—guests whom Sicily is sure are multimillionaires, if not billionaires; high-flying colleagues of Justin she recognizes from the covers of Architectural Digest ; New York–socialite heiresses who used to appear in all Germaine’s Insta posts.
But one limo holds a rowdier crowd that’s slightly out of place among the refined others. Sicily recognizes a group of Blast Off! Network alum marveling at the surroundings and chattering excitedly. She takes a step back and peers across the drive, curious to see who’s all here. It’s not like she thinks she’s better than the old cast, but they truly feel like her high school classmates—people who knew Sicily when she was very different. It’s an odd sort of intimacy, and she’d like to save the reunions for when she’s had a bit of liquid courage.
Sicily looks closer. There’s something familiar about the driver, but of course she couldn’t know him. Her interest is cut short when she sees one final passenger climb from the limo and squint in the bright sunlight.
Tyler X.
Sweat immediately coats Sicily’s already-damp palms, and her heart begins to pound sickeningly. She imagines—though of course it’s impossible—that she can smell him from here, the abundance of Axe body spray, the cinnamon gum he always chewed, smacking right in her ear as he coaxed her backstage. Come on, you know you want to.
She hadn’t been at all sure she wanted to. And she had told him so, but he kept going; he said she better get used to the attention as a pretty girl in show business. He said she should feel lucky that her first time could be with a great guy like him.
Sicily realized it was a joke to Tyler the second it was over. Her heart sank at the cocky grin on his face and the way he turned away from her immediately, losing interest and flirting with the other girls at rehearsal the very next day.
She worked up the nerve to ask him about it later on, the question that burrowed in her head: Why? Why? Why? Sicily hates herself for acting so casual, trying again to flirt with him, laughing along like she was in on the joke.
He wanted to have sex with every girl in the cast, he said. It was a game to him.
Sicily was just another notch in his belt.
Sicily retreats farther back on the path as Tyler heads toward the main entrance. She’s managed to avoid him all these years—almost thirty years, in fact. But now he’s here, and she feels just like a scared little kid again who doesn’t know what to do.
She doubles back on her route and hurries to Miranda’s villa.