Her gaze snaps to me, gets hard. “You’re joking, right? The man who suggested us having a fake engagement is hurt because I endangered our relationship? Give me a break, Nolan.”
“Jesus.” I feel like throwing up my hands, but it seems overly melodramatic. “You’re never going to let me live that one down, are you? Never mind that I’ve tried to take it back half a dozen times.”
She’s just shaking her head, though, keeps on shaking it. “It’s too late. The fact that you were even willing to entertain the notion, it proves that this was never really real to you. Wasn’t worth protecting.”
“It doesn’t prove a goddamn thing!” I shove my phone in her face. “This, though? Yeah. This is far worse. You, working with some guy to take me down.”
She takes a step back. “So, you don’t believe me, then?”
I pause. “I don’t know what to believe. All I know is what I see: your name there.”
She stares at me, long and hard. I finally know what shade her eyes are: it’s a reflective blue, the kind that catches whatever’s looking at it. A deceiving shade.
“You really think I’m capable of that?” she asks quietly.
The answer should be obvious, but she keeps the question hanging there, as if it’s even a real one.
I turn to go. I heard what I needed to.
I can’t even begin to think about it.
The name Maurice itches at me with a familiarity I can’t place… yet.
And what Sierra’s saying… I can’t decide on it now.
Yeah, it seems plausible. I want to believe her.
But I need to know the truth.
Funny, I came here sure that I would find it.
“I have to go,” I say, heading for the door.
“Nolan,” she says, her voice a plea, a demand, an accusation. “You don’t actually believe that?”
All I can say is “I don’t know what I believe anymore” before I’m through the door and gone.
And still, down the elevator, out the door, in my car and even later, back in my room, her question follows me.
And I’m no closer to an answer.
Chapter 22
Sierra
That didn’t just happen.
He didn’t just…
I sit down in the hallway, my arms around my knees. I feel little again, small.
Like that time when I was four and Peyton locked me up in my parents’ walk-in closet as a joke while they were outside gardening.
Like it’s pitch-black everywhere and anywhere I extend my hand I’ll feel something foreign, threatening. Like no matter how I cry or beg or yell, no one will hear me.
When I call them, the twins come over. They help me walk Horatio. They give me time to tell them.
When I finally do, they hug me.
“Holy moly,” Josie says as we separate.
She’s tried wearing her ridiculous yellow sunflower hoodie to cheer me up. Normally just the sight of it, all those smiling yellow sunflowers, makes me crack up. Not today.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Wynona says diplomatically.
“I can’t believe that Maurice asshat would do that, though,” Josie says.
“I can’t believe Nolan would actually think I’d write an article like that about him,” I say.
“He’s an idiot,” Wynona declares, getting up and heading to the kitchen, probably to find some food.
“He’ll come around,” Josie argues, glaring at her.
I don’t say what I’m thinking: Do I even want him to?
After all we’ve been through, after all we’ve shared, that last night with the bath and stargazing and telling each other things that seemed secret, his secret admission when he thought I was asleep, I thought we were closer than this. Close enough that misunderstandings couldn’t happen.
Close enough that, even if, somehow, they did, they’d fall away easily enough, as soon as we could talk to each other.
Granted, this is a singular sort of misunderstanding, but still.
Where I thought we were, there shouldn’t have been doubt. Shouldn’t have been uncertainty.
“Hey,” Josie says, draping her arm around me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK,” I say, even though it isn’t.
“You know men,” she says, injecting some jokiness into her tone. “Sometimes they just need to stew it over. Realize what an idiot they’ve been.”
I nuzzle my head onto her shoulder. “Only I’m the one who’s been an idiot. With this whole Nolan thing. And taking that horrid Maurice job in the first place when it felt wrong.”
“You were just trying to help your mom,” Wynona says, returning with a full-on cake.
I pause, scrutinizing it. “Where did that come from?”
“I bought it,” she says indifferently. “I’ve been having a cake craving lately anyway.”
I have to chuckle. “Glad to be of service?”
“Wait till you see the caption,” Josie says excitedly, ripping off the lid.
Sure enough, in rainbow swirling icing on the top, it reads: YOU GOT THIS, BITCH.
I laugh and laugh, hugging them.
“Thanks guys,” I say, separating. “Should I go get…”
“Nah,” Wynona says. “I think this calls for some hand slices.”
“No way.” I crack a grin. “But the last time we did that—”