“Well, I’ll watch out for flames.”
“You better,” Sheridan said. “You’ve been warned.”
“All joking aside, I know you’re the real deal, Sheridan. We had a mutual friend who convinced me.”
“Had?” Sheridan asked, sounding less sure of herself.
Before the conversation could go any further, the sliding door opened, and a male voice boomed, “Jasmine! I was looking for you.” It was the voice of a confident man, the kind of voice you’d pick to narrate a documentary about the disappearance of the glaciers.
“Genesis,” Markus said, but Gabby already knew. He delivered all his dialogue in the same authoritative tone. Half of his lines, even the boring ones, had been memed. “If you can’t handle the G’s, get out of the kitchen.” “Is that karate, or are you swatting flies?” His voice was all over TikTok.
“Sheridan, dearest Sheridan,” Genesis said, “you look vital and vibrant.”
“Would you like some tea?” Sheridan asked, ignoring the comment. He sounded more like the psychic than her.
“What are you two ladies talking about?” Genesis asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Jasmine answered.
“We brought you here for a reason, Sheridan,” Genesis said. “Our energy needs your energy.”
“No offense,” Jasmine’s impatient voice cut into the conversation, “but she can’t fix us, G.”
“This woman,” Genesis paused dramatically, “has elevated men to greatness over and over. She might not know it, but she is a synergizer.”
“Synergizer?” Gabby mouthed the word to Markus, who shrugged in response.
“I’m not even sure what a synergizer is, G,” Sheridan said. In a softer voice, she said, “Are you okay, Jasmine?”
There was a heavy breath. “I’m… okay.”
Okay physically, but clearly not okay emotionally. Gabby hadn’t even met Jasmine yet, but she felt that answer down deep.
“Can you help us, Sheridan?” G’s voice was earnest.
“She can’t, G. You can’t just kidnap a celebrity and hope that fixes our marriage.”
Sheridan said, “No worries, though. I’m enjoying the vacation.”
Ignoring Sheridan, Jasmine said, “This man”—her voice was filled with pent-up emotion, and Gabby could imagine Jasmine pointing at her husband with accusation—“is cheating on me.”
“Oh.” Sheridan sounded like this was a surprise to her.
“Jasmine, no,” Genesis implored. “Don’t say that out loud.”
“If she’s a psychic, she already knows.”
Genesis must have bought that because, in a gentler voice, he said, “Only with my body, not with my spirit.”
Gabby choked on her coffee.
Then came the sound of hard shoes on the patio, followed by a sliding door and a “Jasmine, wait.”
Gabby and Markus listened for a moment longer, but the conversation seemed to be over for now.
“Well, that was—” Gabby didn’t even know what to say. It was tawdry. And confusing.
The Power Couple rhetoric was nothing but a lie. Genesis was cheating on Jasmine, and he’d brought in a psychic to put the marriage back together. No wonder Jasmine was unhappy.
