God, I’m such a wimp. I know the longer I wait, the harder it’ll be. Kiara and I became very close friends over the past few years. She taught me how to bake. I was her confidante. I helped her and Colton get together. She should have been the first to know about my marriage. Heck, she should have knownbeforeI got married to Noah.
In a nutshell, I broke the trust we had.
Can I break this trust even further by lying to her about the circumstances of my marriage?
What am I going to tell Kiara? Will she buy my lie?CanI even lie to her? What’s more important? That everyone believes we’remarried? Or that my friend understands and supports me—and that I don’t lie to her?
My stomach in knots, with no answers to my questions other than I feel shitty about myself. I drive away.
8:40
Me:
Hello?
8:41
Mom:
Went shopping with Cheryl! Why?
That’s kinda early for a shopping trip, but sure.
Me:
Oh, great!
I expect her to ask mewhyagain, but she doesn’t. She must be distracted. Having fun. That has to be good, right? Then why do I think she’s giving me the cold shoulder?
Because Mom doesn’t go shopping at eight in the morning. Not in her state.
“Back already?” Beck asks as I pull back into the carriage house. “Hey, Lane!” he shouts at the top of his lungs while I haul my travel bag out the car. “Willie’s back! Get your ass here!”
She opens her bedroom window and shouts back, “In a minute!”
“I’m starting without you!” he yells. Turning his attention to me, he spreads his arms. “Da carriage house, cos it used to be for horses and carriages, and now it’s for cars and shit. Not much difference.” Pointing to the barn across a wide-open space, he adds, “My digs. Stay out of there.”
I frown. “Why?” I can never resist a little ribbing, and I know Beck from the adaptive sports program on the mountain. He stillcarries around a tinge of bad reputation from his teenage years, but now he really is just a prankster—and a player. “You have to know the moment you tell someone to stay out of someplace, they’re gonna want to go in. I mean, you’ve seen the movies, right?”
“You mean the ones where the stupid girl runs to the barn when someone’s chasing her?”
“Ha-ha.” Switching my bag to my other shoulder and heading toward the mansion, I add, “Note to self: sneak into Beck’s digs when he’s not around.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Afraid I might find your conquests chained to the bed?”
“Ugh,” he growls, but drops the topic.
Ten minutes later, we’re in the basement of the main house, facing a brick wall, a bare light bulb projecting our distorted shadows.
“You see it?” Beck asks. His finger traces the contours of the brick.
There’s clearly a difference in the color of the bricks. And there’s a straight line where the bricks aren’t staggered. As if a door had been walled in. “Nope.”
“You’re fucking shitting me.”
“What do you think it is?”
