“But ...” There has to be a way out of this. If Townsend learned anything from his father, it’s that powerful men always find a way out. “How would Sage even know the documents are fake? All I need to do is close this partnership, and my user numbers are bound to increase. It won’t matter where my numbers started as long as they get where they need to be, right?”
“Except you hired that data science professor. And they could talk. They could even testify against you.”
“She wouldn’t,” Townsend says. He doesn’t know this for sure, of course, but that’s too humiliating to admit. His father never would have worked with anyone he didn’t trust with his life.
Carter stands; it seems Townsend’s time is up. “Just promise me you’ll come clean before this gets worse for you, all right? Oh, and tell your mother that I have a name for her.”
“A name?”
“Just tell her I’ll give her a call later.”
“Okay.” Townsend already feels stupid; it doesn’t seem worth it to ask any more questions and further demonstrate his idiocy.
The short walk home is spent in a daze; all Townsend can think about are penalties and prosecution and prison time. When he approached that data science professor, hoping to give his numbers a little boost, he wasn’t driven by greed or a desire to deceive; that’s notthe kind of man he is. All he wanted was to prove himself to his mother, to show her he was deserving of both her respect and the money in his trust. He wanted to make her proud, and he wanted to make his father proud too. And he’s worked way too goddamn hard preserving his father’s legacy for shit to end like this.
He’s so distracted that it takes him a moment to register the sight of a figure stretched out on his couch—smiling eagerly at him—when he opens his door.
“There you are.” Talia gestures to the plastic containers she’s spread out on the coffee table. “I picked up dinner from Uchiba. Your favorite.”
Still standing at the door, he pauses, suspended in time. He takes in her bare feet curled up beneath her, toenails painted purple; her dark hair pulled back into a short ponytail at the nape of her neck; her lithe frame swallowed by his old Penn crewneck. How lucky he is, to have this gorgeous girl waiting for him, somehow able to anticipate his every need. How nice it would be, to come home to this every day, to have this person who’s fully committed to him for life no matter what kind of shit he faces.
“You okay?” Talia tilts her head to one side, a gesture he finds unexpectedly charming. She may be a woman in STEM, but he likes these reminders that she’s still a babe in arms at heart.
“I’m just amazed you knew I was craving sushi when I didn’t even know it myself.”
“What can I say? I’m all-knowing.” Talia breaks her chopsticks apart with a splintering crack that makes Townsend flinch. “You sure you’re all right?”
“Just had a weird day,” he says, which isn’t a lie. “But you’re here, so it’s better now.” Wherever Amanda is hiding, he’s going to find her, he decides. He won’t let her reveal what she knows. He won’t let her take everything he’s earned away from him.
“I’m glad you’re better.” Talia hands him a pair of chopsticks. “Now stop being weird and let’s eat.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Talia
Waiting for her iced coffee at Jo’s on Wednesday, Talia does what she often does to fill unstructured time: She opens Instagram.
She scrolls past a post from her boss Betty, celebrating her twenty-year reunion at MIT. Another from Townsend’s buddy Brett, sailing around the Balearic Islands with his girlfriend Nicole. Then she pauses on a post from her favorite author, Kennedy J. Abbott—a dewy-skinned selfie in which she’s holding up a mug.POV: Hubby knows exactly how you like your morning matcha,the text at the bottom of the image reads.
Matcha. Of course she drinks matcha. Talia glances up to see if her order is ready yet; perhaps it’s not too late to change her coffee to an iced matcha.
On her phone screen, a second Story from Kennedy appears. It’s a professional portrait: Kennedy and her husband Thad and their identical twin girls, all dressed in white and huddled together in a field on a red gingham blanket. Looking like characters Kennedy had conjured up for one of her novels.One year ago today,she captioned the photo,and feeling just as immeasurably blessed.
Scrolling through Kennedy’s photos—seeing her house and spouse and pink-cheeked babies—used to be a painful experience for Talia.A reminder of all the things she’d yet to accomplish. But then she reconnected with Townsend, and now the fairy tale that is Kennedy’s Instagram grid feels less like an aspirational mood board and more like a glimpse into Talia’s possible future. The future she and Townsend could share together.
Despite all the factors conspiring to tear them apart, Talia and Townsend have never been more in sync; Talia is sure of this, and she feels sure that Townsend would agree. Nearly every time she grabs her phone to text him throughout the day—just a heart emoji or a quickI miss you—she finds a message already waiting from him, because he’d been missing her too. And despite her spending nearly every night at his place, he still lights up when he sees her at his door and wakes her every morning with a kiss. Just last night, she brought him take-out sushi after work on a whim, and he looked at her as though she were a mind reader, the answer to his prayers. Just as he is the answer to hers.
Yes, he cheated, as Meera never tired of reminding her. What Talia can’t get her to understand is that he’s changed. He’s more industrious than the man he was last year, and more thoughtful too—the kind of guy who can remember her coffee order at Jo’s (a large Iced Turbo with sugar-free vanilla syrup and an extra shot of espresso) and will surprise her with one when she needs it most.
And of course, she can’t get Meera to understand what it felt like to be in his family home for the Fourth of July party, to wash her hands with a bar of soap shaped like a seashell and scented like a summer peach, to have someone whisk away her dirty plate before she even noticed or could thank them. The life Townsend offers is as plush and comfortable as the half dozen goose-down pillows stacked on his bed, the ones he kicks onto the floor during the night without a second thought, and while she would love him no matter where he came from, the fact that he came from a lot ... well, it makes Talia more forgiving. Not a lot, but a little.
With Townsend, she feels secure in a way she never felt with Malcolm—more secure than she feels even with Meera, who’s beencagey and strange ever since Talia got back together with Townsend. At first, she thought Meera was jealous, but more recently, she’s become convinced that her friend is keeping something from her. It would be insane for Meera to lie about receiving that photo of Gracie playing in the park, but Talia can’t stop thinking about it. The way Meera seemed so convinced, so sure she was now a target of Amanda’s wrath, just like Talia—it isn’t sitting right with her. What reason would Amanda have to go after Meera? Of course, Meera did encourage Talia to report Amanda’s harassment to the police. Is that why Meera thinks Amanda is after her now? Or is there some other reason—some connection between the two women that Talia isn’t aware of? The thought would be laughable if it weren’t so disturbing.
“Large Iced Turbo with sugar-free vanilla and an extra shot?”
Talia looks up from her phone to see a barista brandishing her coffee and scurries over to grab it.
A line from Kennedy J. Abbott’s novelRight on Trackpops into her head:Emmeline tends to get tangled up in narratives that only exist in her own head.The same could be said for Talia, who’d be the first to admit she has an overactive imagination. She’d never want to jeopardize her friendship with Meera over an imagined betrayal, and she’s just about to text Meera, to ask to clear the air—until she steps into the parking lot and sees a matte black Ford Taurus has sidled in right next to her car. This normally wouldn’t set off alarm bells in her head, except the parking lot is otherwise empty, and it seems strange for this car to choose a space directly beside the only other car in the lot. Plus, both the windshield and front side windows are tinted, which she doesn’t think is allowed in Texas—at least notthisdark.
