Chapter 10 #2
But I’m glad he’s going now. He’ll be a good deflection from any questions my sisters might hit me with about Reese. Especially because she won’t be there. I can’t subject her to a full Kelly-sibling grilling when our fake relationship is still on its wobbly newborn legs.
“Good. It’ll be great. I’m only going because I’m pretty sure Cass is going to be eating a good ol’ crow pie, thanking me for bringing the show to Rolling Hills.”
“All right, that’ll be worth going for,” Seamus laughs.
A few hours later I’m two beers deep at O’Malley’s, feeling like a million bucks. Sam & Dave blasts from the speakers—they actually have a jukebox here still, and I crammed it full of quarters when I last went to the bathroom, so it’s still playing my playlist.
My twin sister did indeed eat crow, telling me she was wrong about dismissing the show at first. “I’m already hearing buzz from travel magazines,” she says after she makes an actual speech thanking me for bringing eyes to our family hotel.
“I take groveling in the form of beer,” I say, lacing my fingers behind my head.
“You’ve made him insufferable,” Chelsea complains.
“Agreed,” Jude says. I whip a coaster at my brother, but of course the damn reflexes on that guy means he catches it without even blinking.
Stupid professional athlete. Jude and I don’t always get along, but even he can’t put me in a bad mood tonight.
Having Cass suck it up and apologize to me is just too sweet.
The only thing that would make it sweeter, I realize, is having Reese here.
And maybe my brother Griffin—but he’s in and out of town so much no one ever knows where he’s going to be at any given time. He was against the show in the beginning but came around. His support looks like begrudging neutrality.
I glance down at my phone on the table, willing Reese to text me. I asked her how it went today—how she felt it went—and all she wrote back was “good.” Which was annoying, but I knew I’d probably just caught her at a busy time.
Nora, sitting next to Jude, turns her video camera off.
Jude reassured us it’s just a hobby of hers and she doesn’t actually use the footage for anything.
It used to unnerve me how she’d film everything, but by now I’m used to it.
I’m even a little grateful, seeing as I don’t feel too nervous about the prospect of the cameras on the show pointing at me every now and then.
But Nora’s expression is tight, her eyes over my shoulder, and I’m compelled to turn back to see why.
When I do, my stomach drops. It’s my ex-wife, wearing a black cocktail dress and high-heeled ankle boots, her hair swinging in a ponytail sleeker than the loose one she was wearing this morning on set.
I want to look away before she sees me, but it’s too late. Her eyes lock onto mine, just as Neil comes in through the door behind her.
He waves exuberantly.
I groan, lifting a hand up as they make their way directly over to the booth. Seamus squirms. “Oh shit, it’s happening,” he whispers to Chelsea, clearly star-struck by the host of his favorite show.
We do our introductions. Though most of my siblings met the two of them on one of our pre-production video calls, Jude wasn’t there.
He also, I realize, has never met Kelly in person.
The whole time we were married, he was overseas.
When he wasn’t playing tennis, he was partying.
We didn’t really see him for most of his twenties, truth be told.
“Hey!” Jude says now, grinning and shaking Neil’s hand exuberantly.
When he does the same with Kelly, something washes over his face I can’t place. The old me might have been jealous—Jude seems to make every woman he meets melt. But it must be nothing, because soon he’s grinning again. “You guys want to join us?”
I blanch. You fucking idiot.
Nora looks right at me, eyes wide.
But I don’t have time to make anything up to discourage them from sitting, because of course Neil has grabbed a couple of chairs from a table nearby.
My heart picks up speed. I need to get the hell out of here.
“Nice to see you two again,” Kelly says to Cass and Blake, and they chat for a few moments while I try to think of a way to cut the night short. A night I was enjoying until they showed up.
Then Kelly turns to me, saying the thing I knew was coming. “Where’s Reese, Eli?”
Fuck.
“Reese?” Cass asks, frowning.
“Oh yeah,” Jude says. “Haven’t you heard? Those two are a thing.”
I grit my teeth.
Neil’s eyebrows fly up. “Them too, Eli?!” He turns to Cass for some reason. “We discovered he was keeping their relationship secret from the staff, but we didn’t know it wasn’t common knowledge among the family either! Guess the cat’s out of the bag, eh Eli?”
My siblings are all gawking at me, and Seamus is looking at me like he’s concerned for my mental health.
“I’ve never known you to be so private, Eli,” Kelly says.
I shoot her a look. “You don’t know a lot about me,” I say, maybe a little too hard.
For a moment everyone’s quiet, and I hate how suddenly I feel like the asshole here. “I don’t need to broadcast my social life to the whole world, unlike some people.” I glower at Jude.
Jude shrugs, tossing a piece of calamari into his mouth. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Nothing bugs that guy.
Kelly has an expression on her face that almost looks smug. But I realize she’s still waiting for me to answer.
“She’s on her way,” I say. Blurt more like.
What is wrong with me?
I try not to appear panicky as my eyes snap to Nora.
She looks like she wants to slap her forehead. Or mine. She definitely knows. “Well, she did have that thing,” Nora says weakly.
“What thing?” Jude asks, oblivious, like always.
I push up from the table, heart pounding. “I’m going to give her a call, see what’s taking her so long.”
With my phone in hand, I shoot off a text to Reese before I’m even a few feet away. I can practically feel Kelly’s eyes burning into my back.
ELI: Hey, what’s up?
I hit send, then I cringe. The fuck?
ELI: You busy right now?
Then before I can tap out another compelling bit of prose, I scroll through my contacts as I weave through the tables full of happy, boisterous people who aren’t pretending to be in relationships with people who can’t stand them.
There—Nora’s number I wasn’t sure I had. Relief blows through me. I fire off a quick text that says simply, Help!
Reese still hasn’t responded—never mind it’s only been thirty seconds—so I tap her number as I step outside into the crisp night air.
Hi, you’ve reached Reese Franc—
“Fuck.” I hang up.
Breathe!
For a moment, I’m deeply tempted to run the few blocks to Reese’s house to throw pebbles at her window. I try again.
She picks up on my third try.
“What’s wrong, Eli?”
A second wave of relief floods through me at the sound of her voice. Then my nerves coil back up tight. “What are you doing right now?”
“I was trying to have a shower.”
For a moment, my idiot brain pictures Reese naked, dripping with water, and my mouth goes dry.
“Eli, what is it? Are you okay?” Her words knock me out of my very ill-timed fantasy.
But I’m also touched that she sounds genuinely concerned for me.
“No, I’m not okay.” I’m being honest. But I clarify so she doesn’t think I’m mortally wounded or something.
“Listen, I know we haven’t presented ourselves as a couple to my family, but I’m at O’Malley’s right now with my siblings and Neil and Kelly just came in and stupid Jude invited them to sit with us.
For all I know, Cass is telling my ex-wife they just found out about our relationship—our fake relationship—and Kelly’s going to know I’ve been bullshitting her and that I’m just as fucking pathetic around her as I always am—”
“Eli, calm down. Take a breath.”
Once again, her voice is kind. Well it won’t be when she hears what I have to say next. “Reese, I told them you were on your way down here. So I was hoping you might, you know, be willing to be on your way down here.”
There’s a long pause, before Reese says, “I’m not even dressed, Eli.”
Goddammit.
Pictures of Reese naked flash before my eyes again, and it’s a problem, because I know what she looks like naked. I fucking remember it, and it’s glorious.
I scrub the images from my brain. Not now.
“Drinks are on me. Dinner. Have you eaten? They have a decent burger—”
“Eli…I…can’t you just tell them I’m busy?”
I hang my head, pressing my thumb to my temple. “Yeah.” This was stupid. It’s perfectly normal for a couple to spend a night apart.
I turn around and look back through the plate glass windows into the bar. Jude’s gesticulating exuberantly, like he does. Kelly’s laughing, looking pretty and happy.
“Who looks happy?”
My stomach plunges. The fuck? “I said that out loud?”
I want to smack my head on the brick wall next to the window. What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Hang on, Eli, I’m getting a text.”
I spin around and lean against the strip of brick next to the window. It would be so easy—just tip my head forward and bonk it backward. Knock some sense in me.
But then to my utter and complete surprise, Reese comes back on the line, and says, “I’m sure I’m going to regret this, but I’ll be there in ten.”