Chapter 3 #4
Beneath the image, Willa had written, You seriously spoiled me. I so grateful to have an amazing man like you in my life.
Miranda lifted her eyes to Garrett’s face.
He saw the message then.
The color rose slowly along his throat. He turned the phone toward himself and read it once, his expression difficult to name.
“Well?” Miranda asked.
“She means it as a friend.”
“Of course she does.”
“She does. I’ve known her forever, we’ve been friends since high school. It’s nothing like that.”
“Then answer.”
Garrett looked at the phone again. “What do you want me to say?”
Miranda almost laughed.
The question proved everything more effectively than the message itself. Garrett knew how to reassure Willa without effort when she was embarrassed, grateful, stranded, overwhelmed, or afraid of disappointing someone at work. Faced with a boundary, he suddenly required instructions.
“Say whatever comes naturally,” Miranda said.
Garrett typed with one thumb. He paused twice, erased something, then locked the phone without showing her what he had written.
“What did you say?” Miranda asked.
“I told her I was glad she liked it.”
The phone was still face-down on the bed. Miranda looked at it, then back at Garrett. Owen’s weight had settled fully against her, his breath slow and damp against her collarbone.
“What was I supposed to say?” Garrett’s voice had the particular edge of a man who already knew the answer.
“Something that didn’t give her what she was asking for.”
“She wasn’t asking for anything. She was being warm.”
“She was being strategic.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep not hearing it.”
Garrett moved to the window. He stood with his back to her, one hand braced against the frame, looking out at nothing in particular—the driveway, the neighbor’s porch light, anywhere that wasn’t her face.
“I’ve known Willa since high school. Willa has always talked like that,” he said to the glass. “She doesn’t mean anything by it.”
The words snagged.
Miranda heard it the way you hear a sound in another room. She let it sit for a moment, feeling its shape. “Always,” she said.
Garrett’s hand dropped from the window frame. He didn’t turn around.
“How long has she been saying things like that to you?”
“She’s expressive.” His reflection was unreadable in the dark glass. “That’s just how she is.”
“That is not an answer.”
“For years, I guess.” His irritation returned, but it sat uneasily over something else now. “She thanks people. She compliments people. That is who she is.”
“No.” Miranda held Owen tighter when he stirred. “That is who she is with you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know she didn’t answer when I told her I was barely surviving.”
Garrett’s eyes sharpened. “What?”
“Two weeks ago. She asked how I was sleeping. I told her I wasn’t, and she disappeared.”
“She probably got busy.”
“Of course.”
“She has a demanding job.”
“My job.”
The correction landed. Garrett flinched, and Miranda saw anger return because shame had become intolerable.
“You gave her that job,” he said.
Miranda went still.
Garrett seemed to regret the words immediately, but he did not take them back.
“I recommended her,” Miranda said, the words tight as she adjusted Owen’s weight against her shoulder. “Because she’s your friend, and she was between gigs.”
Garrett’s eyes narrowed. “You told Dennis she could handle it.”
“Because she was supposed to keep my place.” She could feel the baby’s warmth seeping through her shirt.
“And she has done that.” He spread his hands, a gesture that felt rehearsed.
Miranda shook her head slowly. “She removed me from it.”
“You do not know that.”
“She is using my title.” Her voice dropped, low and precise.
“Because clients need confidence.” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled.
“She took my place on the website.”
“She did not write the website.” He said it to the wall, not to her.
“She is accepting praise for relationships I built.”
“What is she supposed to do,” he snapped, finally facing her, “issue a disclaimer every time someone compliments her?”
Miranda stared at him, her breath held. “You are defending her.”
“I am defending reality.”
“No.” Her voice broke on the word. “You are defending the person who makes you feel good.”
Garrett’s face closed completely. He looked down at his hands, then back at her, his expression stripped of any willingness to engage. “That is enough,” he said.
The authority in his tone shocked them both.
Miranda felt something inside her cool. “You do not get to decide when this is enough.”
“I do when you start attacking my character.”
“I am describing it.”
Garrett picked up his jacket from the chair. “I’m going downstairs.”
“Good.”
“I’m sleeping in the guest room.”
“That’s also good.”
He stopped at the door, waiting for her to object.
Miranda did not.
Garrett looked at Owen instead, his face softening with a pain he allowed himself to show only where the baby was concerned. “Bring him to me if he wakes and you need help.”
Miranda almost asked whether he meant help from himself or from Claire.
He left and closed the door quietly.