It felt good. Weird, but good.
Islid behind the wheel and pointed the car toward my rental, mind already racing ahead to whatever disaster Gerty was hauling into town with her. If there was a prize for top-tier drama magnet, my friends would sweep the category every year.
When I pulled up to the rental, she was already halfway up the sidewalk, bent double under a mountain of cardboard and canvas. The backseat of her car was jammed solid with paint-stained smocks, a pile of galley proofs, and what looked suspiciously like four different kinds of instant coffee. I didn't even have a chance to open my mouth before she spotted me and called, "Don't just stand there, grab the green bin! My thumb is literally going to snap off."
It wasn't a joke. The plastic tote that dropped into my hands was loaded with art books, half a dozen tangled phone chargers, and, for some reason, a single ceramic duck. I didn't ask.
Inside, the house was thankfully mostly unpacked. I'd left it in better shape than I'd remembered. Gerty navigated the remaining moving boxes like a pro and parked the bin next to the couch. "Okay, don't freak out, but my stalker found me again. The cops are useless, my landlord's a coward, and I had to bail." She said this while scanning the room for an acceptable corner to dump her stuff, as if amaniac with a knife was just Tuesday's weather, but the real crisis was whether the Wi-Fi password was under the router or taped to the fridge.
It hit me like a club. "Wait, he showed up at your apartment?"
"Broke the back window," Gerty said flatly. "Thankfully, I wasn't home. My security camera caught him scraping messages into my mailbox. The cops dusted for prints but found squat. Guy's basically invisible unless he's bugging out at me."
She shrugged like it wasn't the most terrifying thing I'd heard all year.
My brain tried to switch tracks, but Gerty wasn't done. "And before you ask, no, I didn't call my uncle and aunt. I'm officially on my own. The fun part of being a trust fund disaster? You can be broke in style."
She plopped her bag onto the couch.
"Broke?" I questioned, just to be sure my ears worked.
"That's the headline. No reserves, no fallbacks, not even enough for a week in a bad motel." She let that land, then gestured toward the car. "Come on, Tash. Help me get it all in."
I staggered another load to the entryway, brain still backpedaling. "Gerty, you come from, like, actual money. Trust fund money. What happened to it all?"
She shot me a sideways look, all mischief bordering on heartbreak. "I spent it. All of it. Every dime."
That shut me up. For a solid ten seconds, all I could do was watch her wrestle a suitcase up the porch. The silence stretched, awkward and stunned.
Gerty grunted, then dropped her voice. "Look, it wasn't shopping sprees or some crypto scam. It was for Beth."
The world went back on its axis as things started making sense again. Iknewshe'd do it. "For Beth?"
She nodded. "I did what you do when you care about someone. I paid the bastard off. Made him sign away his rights, NDA, the whole nine yards. A million buys a lot of silence."
I dropped into a chair, gaping at her.
Gerty just smirked, like my shock was the best thing she'd seen all month.
"You're telling me you used up your trust fund to buy Beth's freedom?"
"Yes." She didn't look away. "But Beth's worth it. I just didn't want her to ever feel like she owed me anything. She'd never take charity, you know her. So this way, she keeps her pride, and Ryan disappears. I'll get more money, somehow."
I sagged in the chair. "Does she know?"
"No, and don't you tell her either." Gertyshrugged, eyebrows arched. "Beth deserves peace. That's all I wanted."
I couldn't decide if I wanted to hug her or throttle her for not saying anything sooner.
"So," she said, waving a paintbrush like a wand, "that's the drama. I'll hunt for gallery work or find a part-time job until I sell some more art. I'll just be here short term." She owned a gallery in Knoxville, but it was a passion project, not a money maker. It usually only made enough to keep itself running. Paid the employees and kept the lights on.
I snorted, the only sane reaction. "You do know you've lucked out, right? You'll have the house to yourself for a while."
That caught her off guard. "Wait, what?" She pointed the brush at me, eyes wide. "Did you move in with the dad?"
Cue the world's fastest full-body blush. "The girls, erm, hit it off with their dad. Chance. And, well, we're sort of, uh, crash-coursing a family thing? He invited us to stay with him for a couple of weeks. Just so they could get to know each other. Make up for lost time, and all that."
Gerty smirked. "Is that all you're getting to know?" She knew too much for her own damn good.
