Can you come over?
I send that to Katelyn, knowing she’ll be here the second she wakes. After starting a pot of coffee, I return to the bathroom and pick up the trash... also known as the novel. It’s sad to think that people will spend their hard earned money on something like this, but the gossipmongers will be out in full-force and taking this as gospel, especially the part that tells the world that the only reason Liam and I are married is because of Noah and how I blackmailed him, threatening to take everything away from him. It’s funny to think that it was me begging Liam not to take Noah away from me. Alone, he could offer Noah such a better life and could easily have had his high-powered attorneys destroy me. Sam tried though, on his behalf. It was that night that I knew Liam and I would be okay. When I showed him the papers that Sam had dropped off, he was livid, promising me he would never do anything of the sort. Sadly, somehow that part didn’t make it into the novel. I guess Calista Jones failed fact checking in school.
The sound of the buzzer blasts through the house notifying me that someone is at the gate. The video monitor by the door shows me Katelyn, sitting in her car. Turning off the alarm and pressing the button that opens the gate, I return to the kitchen and pull out two mugs and pour the freshly brewed coffee into them. It’s going to be a long day for me and knowing she’s come here in the middle of the night means she’s been waiting for my text.
“What the hell, Josie?” she says as she comes through the door. Katelyn puts her bag down on the counter and pulls me into a hug. “Liam called and said you weren’t answering. I called you and when you didn’t answer I called Nick to see if he had Noah and to find out if you were going anywhere. What’s going on?”
“This,” I tell her as I hand her the book. “It was delivered earlier, and I decided to read it.”
Her face and shoulders drop as she looks at me. Tears form around the rims of my eyes, but they stay at bay. She knows what I’m going through, as she went through something similar with Harrison, all thanks to Sam.
“Did you read it?”
I nod. “Most of it.”
She sets it on the counter and brings the mug closer to her, adding some of the cream that I had pulled out before she walked into the kitchen.
“You know, you told me not to believe everything I read or see in the press about Harrison, right?”
“That’s what the guys tell us to do. We have to trust them.”
Katelyn holds her mug in her hands, warming them even though it isn’t cold out. “When Harrison and I were in LA a few weeks back, we went to a basketball game. It was more for Peyton than any of us, but we do things as a family so we all went. I was minding my own business, when I happened to glance up at the jumbo Tron and find my husband gawking at one of the cheerleaders in front of us. I was so angry and embarrassed that I never stopped to look at the bigger picture. Aside from showing complete disinterest, he had nowhere else to look. The girl was right in front of him, shaking her ass. But that didn’t excuse him from looking.
“I spent the next few days angry with him. I would stay inside when he took the kids out to surf and I made sure to keep my ass covered. Those girls were in their twenties and here I am over thirty and shit is starting to sag. Harrison finally had enough and told me so that night. He reminded me that we made promises to each other and nothing should ever come between us. He also said that there are people out there that will make us second guess the people we love and if we allow that, we’re going to be living our lives always looking over our shoulders.”
She pauses to take a drink. “Now tell me, why did you read it?”
“Because I was curious and because I’m jealous.”
“Jealous of what?”
I set my cup down and cover my face, ready to admit for the first time that everything he’s done with his life was better than what we had planned. “I’m hurt that those people got his time when Noah didn’t get shit and he deserved it more than any of them. I’m jealous that I wasn’t enough for Liam to be a part of it. I’m jealous that other women know him the way I do and that they think they have the right to talk about him. I’m jealous that I missed ten years and will never get them back.”