“Just—be nice to Emma. Please. Don’t scare her. I—she—she’s my one.”
“When you came back from Fiji, I knew there was something different about you. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but then you called and told me you were taking that role in that dark comedy that we don’t speak about. And then you started talking about a podcast. And then the Darwin movie—you came back from Fiji with a fearlessness I hadn’t seen on you since you were about four years old. You never seemedunhappy, but you had a new zest for life. We could tell something changed you there. We just didn’t knowwhat.”
I’d argue, but she’s right and we both know it. “She was good for me from the minute we met.”
“And even if she weren’t, this is your life. It’s not mine. You get to live it the way you want.”
My heart squeezes. “Are you—are you dying?”
“Oh mygod, right?” Keisha says. “She told me she liked my hair and I asked the same thing.”
She and Emma both step out onto the patio with us as Mom sighs. “No, I’m notdying. Not of anything specific other than gradual old age. You likely have at least thirty more years with me.”
“Good. Millie will be relieved you’re just getting soft.”
Emma makes eye contact with me. “We’re at that critical moment where if we don’t get Bash headed home for bed soon, he might get more destructive than Marshmallow.”
“Oh, dear,” Mom says. “Does he snoop in people’s luggage when he’s misbehaving too?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure if we give him a couple years, he will,” Emma replies.
“I’ll get better luggage locks,” Mom murmurs to herself. “Lovely to meet you, Emma. If Jonas manages to talk you into a trip to New York, we look forward to seeing you there too.”
“I’ve never been,” Emma says.
“Never?” Keisha says.
“Never,” Emma confirms.
Keisha gapes at me. “How did youbothfind women who hadnever been to New York?”
I’m smiling as I hook an arm around Emma’s waist and nudge her inside. Definitely time to go. “Good taste runs in the family.”
42
Emma
Goingto work while Jonas stays home with Bash is weird.
Not in a bad way.
More in athis is the edge of my new lifekind of way.
I don’t know what next week will bring. Next month. Next year.
I just know that when I get home every day to both of them, everything is utterly magic.
Hayes and Begonia have left town, taking their security team with them. Jonas’s bigger team arrived, fresh off their own vacations that they’d apparently been granted the past few weeks, and I’ve met them all.
All very nice.
Discreet too.
And a little scary, but more in anI don’t want to be on their bad sidekind of way.
Jonas assures me there’s little I can do to get on their bad side. Except, apparently, eat the last of his lead security agent’s Snickers bars. That’s unlikely though since the security team hastheir own house and their own kitchen and their own history that makes all of them guard Graham’s Snickers bar stash with their lives.
The early part of my week brings getting-to-know-you video calls with both the Rutherford family’s head of public relations and their favorite PR coach, along with a celebrity therapist who’s far more down to earth than the butterflies in my stomach expect her to be.
