“Good grief,” he said while scrolling with his thumb. “It’s Dahlia. She’s texted about six times, telling me I need to call her. Weird.” He furrowed his brow at the phone. “She says she wants to talk with me about you.” He dropped his phone unceremoniously into his pocket and shook his head. “Probably already freaking out about our fall festival at the farm and wondering if I’m going to bring you.”
I felt my stomach lurch, my close call with total and unnecessary disclosure still fresh. I wanted Kai to like me with no reservations. His sisters, too. I’d almost gotten in the way of that by spilling what didn’t need to be spilled. “What will you tell her?” We started up the walk toward a symphony of little girl shrieks.
He pulled me into a side hug as we walked. “That’s up to you.” He opened the door for me. “But do you think Avery would lend me his white pants?”
I shuddered and he laughed. The thought of Avery sharing anything with Kai—secrets included—sounded like a recipe for disaster.
22
HONESTLY, the limo seemed like overkill. We were in Seattle, after all. The land of Birkenstocks and coffee and impossible parking. But Vic and Margot had insisted.
“But we’re only going shopping. For dishes, of all things,” I’d said. My protests sounded feeble, particularly with Avery’s outsized enthusiasm as my counterpart.
“Carpe limo!” he’d said and dragged me into the back seat across from Vic and Margot.
I sat gingerly at first on the plush velvet, more than a tad embarrassed by all the onlookers who stared as we made our way through town. Weren’t stretch limos for proms and sweet sixteens? I felt old and as if I’d come to the party early and overdressed.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,” Margot chided when she glimpsed my discomfort. “You must come to peace with your new life.” She raised her eyebrows at me.
Vic nodded. “Attention is good. Attention means ratings and advertisers and renewed contracts. Limos attract attention, our corporate sponsors like attention, so we like limos. Even for a trip to University Village to buy dishes.”
I sat back into the seat and noted how infinitely more comfortable it was than the one in my decrepit Honda.
“Listen,” Avery said quietly, though I couldn’t imagine it was quiet enough to escape Margot and Vic’s ears. “I’m sorry about the other night.”
I scooted a little closer in an attempt to gain some privacy.
Avery took my hand and waited for me to meet his gaze. “Truly. I’m sorry. I was out of line, and I was tired, you were tired.” His laugh sounded nervous and forced. “Old habits die hard, right? So, forgive me?”
I could feel Margot and Vic’s concentrated attention, even though they were making a point to stare out the long windows.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “Like you said, we’re both running on empty. I should have just gone home instead of taking an accidental nap by the fire.”
We rode without speaking for a few blocks. The sun played hide-and-seek with the clouds that covered the city. Grand, ominous shadows blanketed our view for long moments and then blew away suddenly, leaving a city gleaming and trembling with light.
“It was a good kiss, though. Admit it.” Avery put his hand on my knee and grinned, wagging his eyebrows up and down in clownish suggestion.
I peeled his hand off my knee firmly and with deliberation. “It was sloppy,” I said, glad that Avery chuckled and that my heart lightened. Being a part of a world that involved limos and stylists and cameras in my face while torching a line of crèmes br?lée was bizarre enough. The last thing I needed was extra weirdness with an old friend and colleague.
The limo rolled to a stop in front of a high-end kitchen store sandwiched within a block of charming boutiques. Vic unloaded a sheath of postcards into my hands and passed another stack to Avery. They were glossy, black-and-white photos of a woman and a man, both photographed from the neck down. The woman had one hand on her hip and the other pointing with a sassy, painted fingernail to the man’s chest. The man faced her, and, though the photo cut off his face and expression, I’m sure he was ogling the woman’s open chef’s tunic and her burgeoning, healthy bustline, trimmed with just a peek of purple lace. In luscious purple type across the image, the postcards read, THRILL ME. A DELICIOUS NEW SERIES ON SURGE TV.
“Give these to as many people as you can,” Vic said, looking uncharacteristically ruffled. “Debut episode airs September 1.”
“Sweet,” Avery said, taking a close look. “Char, you look great.”
I snapped the photo away from his eyeballs, even though a pile remained in his hand. “You and I both know that woman looks nothing like mine.”
Margot snickered.
“I mean me. Nothing like me.” I cleared my throat.
The driver opened our door, and Margot motioned for me to get out first. “Smile,” she said, without doing so herself.
I obeyed, feeling my fingers curl around the postcards. A few passersby stopped to watch the spectacle of the four of us unfolding from the limo, but most people, I was relieved to note, couldn’t appear to care less.