Chapter Nineteen Chicago, Illinois Present Day
Chapter Nineteen
Chicago, Illinois
Present Day
“Okay, so there are a few things I think you’ll really enjoy in Chicago.
” Scarlett sat across from Chrissie in a café that sold a much fancier brand of tea than what they’d been offered at Great-Aunt Rose’s house—and with the price tag to match.
A steaming pot of something called Apricot Amaretto sat between them, a timer on the table set to alert them when it had reached optimal stewing time.
“The Museum of Contemporary Art is one of those things that everyone says you should go see, but it’s supposed to be such good weather tomorrow that I don’t think we should stay cooped up inside.
Jackson Park has a ton of great outdoor spaces, and it’s impossible to leave the city without doing the architecture river tour.
I wouldn’t mind driving you by the apartment where I used to live, and—”
The timer gave a cheerful chime, interrupting Scarlett in the middle of a flow of chatter that she was almost certainly using to avoid the real issue.
Scarlett continued extolling the virtues of the Chicago tourist scene as she set about pouring the tea, either oblivious or uncaring of the fact that Chrissie hadn’t yet tried to lodge a word in edgewise.
There was nothing to say and even less to do, but that didn’t stop Chrissie from gratefully sipping as she tried to marshal her thoughts into a semblance of order.
Without getting her hands on the pills inside Scarlett’s purse, she had no way of knowing what made River so sure that Scarlett’s condition was more serious than she was letting on.
A teenager was hardly a trustworthy source of medical information, even if said teenager had witnessed the loss of a parent to a similar condition.
Then again, Chrissie had only been seventeen when she’d parceled out pills for Scarlett’s grandmother, the colorful shapes filling the days of the week with depressing regularity. Even at that young age, she’d known exactly what each drug meant.
“Hello? Earth to Chrissie. Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”
Chrissie blinked, torn back to the present so suddenly that she almost dropped her cup. As her vision came into focus, she saw Scarlett with knit brows and dark shadows under her eyes.
The former made sense, given the strain between them; the latter if what River had said was true.
“Let me see the pills in your purse,” Chrissie said suddenly. She reached for the bag dangling from the table hook, but no matter how sick Scarlett was, she still had the reflexes of a cat.
“What? Why? No.” The bag was whisked behind Scarlett’s back, but not before she added, “What did that wretched brat tell you? Dammit, I knew we should’ve left her back in Boise. Our trip was never supposed to include a third person. She’s throwing everything off.”
Chrissie’s phone started ringing before she could respond.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Kat is just as bad as River. That child has the worst timing known to mankind.” Scarlett waved a hand at her. “Go ahead and answer it. I know you’re dying to talk to her so she can make you cry again.”
“In case you failed to notice, I haven’t cried once since everyone started slinging insults and cancer diagnoses at me.
I think I deserve some credit.” Chrissie frowned down at the screen.
The call wasn’t from Kat, but Walsh—and it wasn’t a voice call.
He was videoing in. “But I’m going to take it outside, and if you follow me, I’ll scream to everyone that you’re trying to rob me. ”
“And everyone says I’m the dramatic one,” Scarlett muttered. But she let Chrissie go outside without trying to follow.
“Oh, good. You’re not on the road. I was afraid I might’ve caught you behind the wheel.
” Walsh’s kind, smiling face was such a welcome sight that Chrissie almost made a liar out of herself and started bawling on the spot.
She’d always felt a frisson of electricity when she looked at him—whether he was swishing through the gym in his track pants and matching jacket or coaxing her down for drinks in a hotel lobby in slacks and a button-down—but this was different.
This was like coming home after a long, wearying journey and finding the one person you wanted most waiting behind the front door.
“We’re stopping a few days in Chicago,” she said as she sagged against the brick exterior of the café.
Even that, a slight relaxation of her normally rigid posture, seemed to bring immeasurable relief.
“At least I assume that’s what we’re doing.
Scarlett won’t tell me anything for sure. She’s being…difficult.”
Then she remembered who she was talking to.
“Sorry. I imagine you’re not having too great of a time, either. How’s the cleanup of Chernobyl going?”
“Oh, you know. Nuclear waste and mutant wildlife as far as the eye can see.” He grimaced, the heavy lines of his face folding like an accordion. “I’m really sorry, Chrissie. I should’ve deleted that photo the second we finished texting. I don’t know why I held on to it.”
Chrissie felt like she was tiptoeing across a tight wire in a circus act, balancing a bar burdened on either side with heavy, oversized barbells. One of the barbells was Kat and one was Scarlett, and they were both doing their best to send her plummeting to her death.
She loved them both, she really did. And the right thing to do in this situation was to keep moving across the wire until all three of them were carried to safety. But the words on her stupid list kept flashing in her mind.
“I don’t have to explain myself to anyone,” she said aloud.
One of Walsh’s brows rose. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.” Then, more forcefully. “Nothing. And I’m glad you kept that photo. In fact, I hope you have a secret copy of it stashed somewhere. I hope it haunts your dreams and keeps you lying awake long into the night.”
“I…um…” On the screen, Walsh became a blur of movement.
Footsteps pattered, a door closed shut, and he returned to stillness once again.
The smile that had been on his face was now replaced by concern.
“Have you and Scarlett been drinking? Are you somewhere safe? Are you close enough to your hotel to walk back?”
Chrissie laughed. She didn’t know what strange magic about this man allowed her to laugh when her life was falling apart, but she wasn’t about to question it.
Not when the magic was weaving its spell tighter around her.
“The only thing I’ve had to drink today is tea, although the first batch may have been laced with turpentine.
Does that mean you haven’t deleted the picture? ”
The concern in his face transformed to what looked suspiciously like chagrin. “Am I allowed to plead the Fifth?”
A warm, liquid sensation replaced all of Chrissie’s other emotions.
All of a sudden, she wasn’t standing next to a garbage-scented alleyway with the rumbling of the El one block over.
She wasn’t wearing yesterday’s jeans and her favorite rainbow Crocs, her beautiful haircut now back to its regularly scheduled bundle on top of her head.
She was just a woman talking to a man she liked, and who she was pretty sure liked her back.
“Good for you,” she said. “I mean, shame on you, obviously, but I’m glad you kept it. If you want, I’ll send you a few more to round out your collection.”
“I…” On the screen, Walsh glanced nervously around before dropping his voice.
Based on the glimpses of background she could see—dark blue wallpaper and a bookcase filled with wartime thrillers, the edge of a neatly made bed with a paisley quilt over the top—she was pretty sure he was in his bedroom.
“Chrissie, are you sure you’re not drunk?
Or being held at gunpoint? Blink once for yes and twice for no. ”
Her laugh came a little less confidently this time. “Should I stop? Is this not okay?”
“Yes! I mean—no.” He cleared his throat and fell to the bed. On one corner of the screen, Chrissie could just make out a patch of fake green grass. It was Rufio’s pee carpet. In Walsh’s bedroom. Any chance Chrissie had of making it out of this call with her whole heart disappeared in a flash.
“It’s…amazing, actually,” he said, his voice low. “You know how I feel about you—about you and Kat both.”
Chrissie nodded, her throat too tight to allow words to escape.
“But this is the first time you’ve given any indication that you’re willing to try this thing between us. That you want it, even. I might need a minute.”
The tightness in her throat moved to her chest, where it remained.
Walsh’s kind and careful response—taking into account not just the two of them, but their two children—was as far from romance as possible.
This was the point where passion was supposed to take the place of reason, when they stopped talking and thinking and planning and just, you know, did the thing.
But even in her youth, Chrissie had never been that girl. Where others acted, she stood back and watched. When they gave in, she smiled tightly and prepared to clean up the mess that was left behind.
Walsh Hampton, she was starting to realize, was very much the same. And instead of balking at the curveball she’d just tossed him, he’d caught it and was holding it patiently until he was ready to throw it back.
“Kat was right, you know,” Chrissie said when Walsh’s silence extended longer than even she could stand. “How much of our call did you overhear?”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I was outside mowing the lawn when it happened. I only got the story secondhand from Lily. Was it as bad as she made it out to be?”
Chrissie thought about the venom that had been in Kat’s voice, the way all of her hatred had been angled directly at her head, and winced.