“Oh—I’m sorry,” Ruthie said, dropping the hardened cynic stare for once. “I totally forgot about that.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine as long as we keep the crab on one side of the table,” Emme said.
“At a minimum, you’ll start coughing.” I leaned around Emme to grab her purse off the bench. “Actually, where’s your EpiPen? I want to know where to find it if I need it.”
When I unzipped the little bag, she pointed to the injector nestled between her phone and wallet. “See? Easy peasy. Nothing to worry about.”
I pointed at Ruthie. “No crab cakes.”
She held up her hands in surrender. “Understood.”
I glanced over at Emme but found her frowning, her gaze distant. I rubbed my palm up and down her arm but that didn’t shake her out of it. After a minute, I asked, “What looks good to you?”
She shifted on the bench just enough to angle her shoulder between us as she studied the menu. “Not sure yet,” she murmured. Before I could press any further, she beamed a smile at Ruthie. “Tell me everything about the new job. Ryan says it’s really intense. But you love it, right?”
My sister launched into a long summary of her life as a junior associate at a corporate law firm and all I could do was watch while Emme seemed to pull into herself and away from me.
chapter thirteen
Emme
Today’s Learning Objective:
Students will fly in fancy jets and catch confusing feels.
After the charity ball,Ryan was tied up with meetings in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Tampa, and back again to LA. He still found time to get me a key to his condo and a shiny black Amex that I’d been instructed to use for anything I wanted.
When I’d asked for clarification on whatanything I wantedmight include, Ryan suggested I hire some movers, put the key to good use, and relocate to his condo where I’d be less likely to wake up buried under the ceiling.
I suggested a miniature Shetland pony and an endless supply of antibacterial wipes for my classroom instead.
The next day at school, I received a lovely bird’s nest fern, a hardcover class set ofEdward Tulaneso pristine I wouldn’t let my kids within five feet of the books, and a stuffed Shetland wearing an Arizona Wildcats jersey.
And twothousandrolls of antibacterial wipes.
He was busy that day and didn’t get around to returning any of myOMG WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?texts until I was half asleep. He’d insisted it was nothing, and while that was partiallytrue—he had enough money and enough people working for him to make these things happen with barely a thought—it was that he had thought. He’d rememberedEdward Tulaneand he’d remembered the plants on my desk.
I felt…special.
I had a hard time trusting that emotion because it had a terrible way of proving itself to be an illusion but he’d remembered the books, the plants, all of it.
He’d rememberedme.
It was risky, letting myself spend time with that thought. As risky as everything else we were doing though probably worse since it lulled me into believing these gestures had nothing to do with our fake relationship.
It made me wonder if this was fake at all.
The internet clamorquieted by the end of the week, which was great, though my students were suddenly very interested in my love life. Lots of questions about everyone’s friend Mr. Ralston. A few questions about my ability to get everyone tickets to home games. And one kid asked if I knew where Hersberler was with his contract negotiations.
I didn’t mind that part. It was harmless, and soon enough, the fascination had worn off. Kids were great like that.
It was the messages from brands wanting to send me everything from clothes and shoes to detox teas and collagen powders that felt like I’d tumbled into someone else’s life. It was the requests from magazines and newspapers asking for interviews that taught me to swallow my coffee first and read emails second to avoid choking. It was the texts from folks I hadn’t heard from in ages who made it seem like we were thebest of friends and didn’t even pretend they weren’t looking for gossip.
It was overwhelming. Jamie tasked herself with shutting off the direct messages on all of my apps, closing comments on any old posts, and making my profiles as invisible as possible. When she was done with that, she dug into my email to weed through the invitations and offers and assorted outreach. She informed me I’d need an assistant just to handle my emails if I ended up marrying Ryan.
She still referred to him as Daddy Football and I still died a little every time I heard it.
I’d managed to avoid getting a close look at the dark side of it all—the unbelievable vitriol that came with being the topic of conversation on the internet and everything that went along for the ride—and I hoped I could keep it that way as long as possible.
