“No,” she said. “It’s okay. And it’s kind of funny, I was thinking about it just today.”
She told him about her visit to the elderly Milt, about the photo she’d framed for him, about their vexing, frustrating conversation.
“I knew going in that he was a jerk,” Emily continued. “I think I just hoped that... Well, I really wanted to connect with the son. But Milt Senior didn’t have his contact info—or, you know, if he had it he wouldn’t give it to me. After that unpleasantness, I searched for the younger Milt a bit on my own, but it was like the kid—he was a man by then, but I still think of him as a kid—it was as if he’d dropped off the face of the earth. He was just gone.” She laughed a little. “I guess I’d be gone, too, if I’d done what he did.” She’d tipped her head back then, to look up at Mick. “Do you think he’ll be at the funeral?”
“Oh,” Mick said. “Wow. Gee, I don’t know. That’s... a very good question. If I was gonna guess, I’d say... no?”
“I mean, itispossible they reconciled,” Emily said. “It’s been four—no,fiveyears since I went out to the estate.” The lights from the resort were a gorgeous display of their own and happy, festive music drifted up from a patio somewhere down below them. “I just keep thinking, what if this is my one chance to meet him? The son. You know, at the funeral.”
“You really want to, huh?” Mick said, his voice as much of a whisper as hers had been. “Meet him?”
“Yeah, I do,” Emily admitted. “Not to forgive him—I’mnevergoing to forgive him, that’s not gonna happen, but... I just want to look him in the eye. To have him lookmein the eye and, I don’t know, acknowledge that his actions hadterribleconsequences.”
“Hmm,” he said. “If you want, I could dig a little, find out if he’ll be there.”
“What,” she said, smiling back at him, “you mean, scour the internet? Dive into social media? That’s your least favorite thing in the world.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But you’re mymostfavorite, so...”
She’d kissed him then, and it wasn’t long before they went inside.
Now, in the morning light, Emily slipped on the hotel robe and opened the slider, and Mick turned to look at her, forcing a smile as he said, “Hey, gotta go,” and ended his call, pocketing his phone. Wait, that wasn’t his phone...
“Good morning,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your call.”
“No, we were done.”
“Did you get a new phone?”
“Oh,” he said. “No, well, yeah. Sort of...? This... project has, um, a producer who’s... overseas so yesterday they gave me this phone with, um, an international SIM card.” He pulled it out of his pocket and yeah, that was not his regular phone. It looked kind of shitty. Cheap.
“I thought you had a plan with international calling,” Emily said. “Didn’t you get it for that job with the client in Portugal?”
“Well, yes, but this... it allows him—this producer—to call me without his racking up the charges,” he explained. “You just, you know, sayyeswhen they hand you a phone and make a request like this one. Particularly when there’s so many other times in the project that you have to sayno.”
That made sense. As she moved toward him, he opened his arms and she nestled there as he hugged her back.
“What time did you get up?” she asked.
It was barely eight, but he was fully dressed. Of course, the desert morning was still cool.
“I think around six,” Mick said, kissing the top of her head. “I couldn’t sleep, so I was trying to get some work done.”
“You really don’t have to stay here with me,” she said,looking up at him. “I should’ve said that to you yesterday, while you were back in LA.”
“You made it very clear before I left,” he reminded her, kissing her sweetly. “But I’m exactly where I want to be. Wanna go get breakfast?”
“I was thinking room service,” she said. “In about an hour...?”
Mick smiled as he let her pull him back into the room, back into bed. “Works for me.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jules: Age Seventeen
Connecticut
