Chapter 42
Emma
Going to work while Jonas stays home with Bash is weird.
Not in a bad way.
More in a this is the edge of my new life kind of way.
I don’t know what next week will bring. Next month. Next year.
I just know that when I get home every day to both of them, everything is utterly magic.
Hayes and Begonia have left town, taking their security team with them. Jonas’s bigger team arrived, fresh off their own vacations that they’d apparently been granted the past few weeks, and I’ve met them all.
All very nice.
Discreet too.
And a little scary, but more in an I don’t want to be on their bad side kind of way.
Jonas assures me there’s little I can do to get on their bad side.
Except, apparently, eat the last of his lead security agent’s Snickers bars.
That’s unlikely though since the security team has their own house and their own kitchen and their own history that makes all of them guard Graham’s Snickers bar stash with their lives.
The early part of my week brings getting-to-know-you video calls with both the Rutherford family’s head of public relations and their favorite PR coach, along with a celebrity therapist who’s far more down to earth than the butterflies in my stomach expect her to be.
And far more compassionate too.
One more thing to give Chandler credit for, and to talk to the therapist about—his subtle messages that therapists only ever made you feel bad about yourself and ruined your life by making you ruin all of your relationships.
His way of making sure I didn’t take any steps to feel better about myself enough and worse enough about him to break up with him.
Control.
Manipulation.
Whereas everyone in Jonas’s family and on his staff and public relations team have made me feel valued and appreciated and worthy.
“This is so…” I pause in telling Sabrina and Laney about my week over coffee at Bee & Nugget early Friday, because I can’t find the right words.
“Refreshing?” Sabrina says.
“Encouraging?” Laney suggests.
“Affirming,” I decide. “It’s like, even if they’re gaslighting me in a good way, it makes me feel like I can take on the world, and it’s good . I officially would rather live with false confidence than false doubts.”
“You can take on the world,” Sabrina says.
“And unless he’s way more overboard in private than he is in public, I don’t think he’s opposite-gaslighting you,” Laney says. “I think you’re enjoying all of the benefits of being with someone who believes in you and wants the best for you first.”
We still don’t say his name in public, but we all know we’re talking about Jonas. And if what he’s done to me, for me, and with me in the bedroom this week is any indication, he definitely wants the best for me.
Laney and Sabrina both crack up.
I know I didn’t say that last part out loud, but?—
“Your face, Em,” Laney says.
Sabrina’s cackling. “This is utterly fabulous. It really is. I was ready to tear him completely apart, but I think I like this future for the two of you so much better.”
“Have you talked about telling Bash who he is?” Laney asks.
I smile. “I told Bash last weekend, and when I got home last night, Bash walked up to me and said?—”
I cut myself off, and not entirely because I’ve caught myself from saying Bash said Jonas is his daddy, so Jonas is Daddy . I pause just as much because Sabrina’s frowning out the window.
And that’s not a normal frown.
That’s a someone is going to die frown.
I start to twist to look, but she grabs my arm. “Don’t move.”
Ostrich bumps erupt on every inch of my skin. Including my scalp. And my toes. “Why?” I breathe.
“Could be nothing.”
“Or?”
She grips tighter. “Or it could be reporters, in which case, we’ve got you, okay?”
“Even if it’s reporters, they probably just heard he was here,” Laney murmurs. “They won’t know about you.”
Or they heard Keisha’s here. She and her wife are using Hayes’s house for a vacation, which Jonas tells me is also normal for their family.
Laney’s right.
The reporters don’t know about me and aren’t here about me.
Except they do know about me.
If they remember the video, they do.
Is two and a half years long enough to forget what the star of a viral video looks like?
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe .
The bells on the door next to an old wooden bear statue jingle.
Laney’s gone pale.
Not pale- pale, but pale enough for me to notice.
I try not to act weird while I track the movement out of the corner of my eye. I’m in the one seat that doesn’t have a clear view of either outside or the door. But I get a glimpse of a camera on a strap slung across a guy’s shoulder as he stops at the counter.
Then a glimpse of Willa coming out to help him.
We all hold our breaths and listen as he orders a cup of coffee and a muffin.
And I realize I’m being stupidly ridiculous.
Reporters will be a part of my life from here to eternity. I need to learn to handle this. I am learning how to handle this.
And they don’t know about Jonas and me and Bash. Not together.
Plus, is this guy really a reporter, or is he a photographer stopping by on his way to get shots of the mountains?
Because we get people with cameras all the time.
I shift in my seat, pulling my phone out of my pocket and texting Jonas under the table. Have you heard of reporters arriving in town?
My phone vibrates with a call instantly.
I send him to voicemail and text him again. Don’t want to talk right now . At Bee & Nugget with Sabrina and Laney for a quick break .
His reply is, again, nearly immediate, but this time over text. Graham is across the street. Eyes on the situation. If you need him, steal Laney’s scone. If he thinks you need him, he’ll show up. Do whatever he says. I’m sorry. Love you. And I’m sorry.
I text back a heart emoji and tuck my phone into my pocket. And then I lean into the table. “I heard a rumor they’re taking the fish and chips off the menu at the tavern,” I say quietly.
If this guy is a reporter, it’ll look far more suspicious if we’re sitting here gaping at each other like terrified morons than if we pretend all is normal.
Both of my friends look at me like I’m crazy, but only for a second before Sabrina nods. “I actually heard that too, and I didn’t believe it, so we tracked Bitsy down last night. She confirmed. It’s true.”
“Why?”
“Apparently they can’t get the right mix for the batter right now and they’d rather not serve it than serve what Bitsy calls utter rubbish .”
“They don’t make it in-house?” Laney asks.
Sabrina cracks a weak smile. “That’s a secret I’m not supposed to know.”
The man’s still at the counter. I think he’s looking at his phone while he’s waiting for his coffee.
Or possibly he’s pretending to look at his phone and he’s looking at us.
Is he looking at us?
Or am I letting paranoia win?
“Do you remember that time we thought the treehouse was going to fall down with us in it?” Laney suddenly says, quiet but urgent.
She has a better view of the questionable customer, and I don’t like the tone in her voice.
At all.
Nor do I like that I don’t remember the time the treehouse almost fell down with us in it.
This is making my heart pound and my hands shake and I don’t like it .
“Totally hair-raising,” Sabrina says. “I still wish they’d reinforced it instead of tearing it down.”
My legs are trembling too.
Be strong, Emma. Be brave. They can’t hurt you .
Both of my friends are watching me, casually carrying on a conversation about something I don’t remember, which means they’re trying to tell me something in code, and I don’t know what it is , but I know I want out.
I don’t care if that man’s a tourist or a reporter. I don’t care what Sabrina and Laney are trying to tell me.
I care that I get out of this place right now .
It’s hard as hell to look Laney in the eye, say a polite, “May I?” and reach for her scone as Jonas instructed, but I do.
I trust him.
That’s what he says I need to do.
And so that’s what I’m going to do.
“Of course,” Laney says like this is natural.
Which it is .
We share food all of the time.
This is natural.
Jonas is right. He’s got me.
I think.
Nothing happens immediately.
Nothing other than Willa bringing the man his coffee. And muffin.
In a ceramic mug and on a plate because he’s not leaving .
It’s not to-go.
Graham doesn’t rush the front door.
I don’t see him outside, but I don’t have the best view.
I feel something though.
Like the hairs on the back of my neck standing up while the man takes a seat at the lone table in the café that I can see clearly.
Which means he can see me clearly.
He’s still playing on his phone.
Wearing a hat that looks like a fly fisherman’s hat.
Camera still slung over his shoulder.
But his phone—his phone is aimed straight at me.
I gulp.
Don’t eat the scone I took off of Laney’s plate.
Sabrina starts to move, but I look at her and silently beg her to not do anything.
She glares back at me.
Sabrina doesn’t like being helpless, and she doesn’t like sitting still when she can do something to fix things.
“I should get back to work,” she says lightly.
It’s a fake lightly.
“Oh, god, me too,” Laney says. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.”
They both look at me.
I try to feel around invisibly for Jonas’s security guy.
Where is he ?
It’s been eighty-four minutes since I gave the signal.
Did he miss it?
Why isn’t he here ?
“I—” I start to croak, and then screams split the air.
No.
Not screams.
Sirens .
“What the fuck ?” Sabrina leaps to her feet.
Laney puts her hands to her stomach like she’s trying to shield her baby’s ears from the smoke alarms.
“Clear out,” Sabrina yells. “Everyone out. You! Out! Fire. Out! ”
There’s no smoke.
And it makes zero sense for her to grab me and Laney and haul us into the kitchen, which is where fire should be , but isn’t, and then it all makes sense.
Graham’s in the kitchen.
He’s a Black man, two inches shorter than me, but built like a tank.
He nods once to Sabrina, who’s giving him the I am only forgiving you for scaring the shit out of my customers because you’re saving my friend look, and then Laney and I are hustled into a black SUV waiting right outside Bee & Nugget’s back door.
“Can’t be late for that meeting, Mrs. Monroe,” Graham says to Laney, whom he treats with absolute kid gloves while he ushers her into the SUV first.
I’m second.
Actually, I feel like an afterthought .
“They’ll think she’s more important,” Graham murmurs to me while the alarm blares in the café behind us, fire truck sirens blare down the street, and my heart slams into my throat.
And then I’m tucked safely into the car with tinted windows and one of my BFFs beside me while Graham hustles around and hops into the driver’s seat.
“Was that a reporter?” Laney asks him as we pull away.
He’s grim-faced.
I hope that means he needs a Snickers bar.
But his answer puts that hope to rest. “The first of many.”