“Maybe.” She smiled, but it was forced. “Let’s just get out of here, huh?”
“Yup. Two and a half minutes.”
THE UBER STOPPED AT MY HOUSE FIRSTbecause it was on the way. I didn’t want to leave her in the car alone, however, and I made a decision on the fly.
“I can go with you to your house,” I said. “Then he can drop me off on the way back.”
To my surprise, she exited the Uber in front of my house. “I can walk from here.”
“No.” I threw cash at the driver in what would likely be considered a rude move and chased her out. “You’re not walking.” I was adamant on that. I gripped the leftovers tighter. “Not alone, anyway.”
Her gaze roamed my face. “Are you going to walk with me?”
If it came to it, that was exactly what I was going to do. I pointed at my house. “How about you come inside, have some water, and we’ll talk, huh?”
“What are we going to talk about?”
“You can tell me about your secret project.” The words just slipped out.
She shifted as the Uber driver pulled out of the driveway, his headlights briefly bouncing off her before we were plunged into relative darkness. “Who said I was working on a secret project?”
I smirked. “Because you shift between files when we’re working by the pool.”
“Maybe I just keep my chapters in separate files.”
“You don’t. You write the same way I do—in one long document.”
Her lips flattened, and for a moment, I thought she was going to start yelling. Then she matched my smile. “You flip between files too.”
I wasn’t surprised that she’d noticed. We were hyperaware of each other when working, even though neither of us had ever really acknowledged it. “I am working on a second manuscript,” I said.
“Because you took so long between projects?”
“Because I’ve always wanted to write a mystery, and I figured I would never get it out of my head if I didn’t at least try.”
“You’re writing a mystery?” Her smile went as soft as her eyes. “I didn’t think you were going to do it.”
“Neither did I.”
“What made you change your mind?”
I hadn’t known it when I first started banging out words, but it was Bree. She gave me strength that I’d never expected because she was my biggest cheerleader. She’d been secretly reading my books, and she apparently liked them enough to keep track of the details. That had been the real reason I’d decided to try writing a mystery.
“I don’t know where it’s going to go,” I admitted. “I might realize it’s crap when I’m done, but I want to be brave for a change.”
She regarded me with an unreadable stare. “You’re braver than you give yourself credit for,” she said. “You’re way braver than me.”
“No, I’m not.” I shook my head. Did she not realize how fantastic she was? “You do this without a safety net. All you have is yourself. Like the tennis players. If things don’t go my way, I always have my trust fund to fall back on.”
Her mouth fell open. “You have a trust fund?”
How did she not realize that?“My father is rich, and my mother was determined. She made sure my trust fund was locked up before she died, just in case my father decided to be difficult. She knew him well enough to recognize he would hold it over my head if I didn’t go to college for business or get perfectgrades. She made sure I was taken care of before she passed away.”
“She sounds like a great mom.” Bree turned wistful. “I know it sucks that you lost her, but at least you had her in the first place.”
“I’ll be forever grateful for that,” I said, inclining my head toward the door. “Come in. I have ice cream.”
“I don’t eat dairy,” she said automatically.
