“You don’t, either,” I say bluntly.
God, it’s quiet. The TV is off, the blinds drawn; there’s no electrical hum. Nothing to shield us from the strangeness of this meeting. He points to the table pressed against the back wall, and we sit down in silence. He crosses his ankles, leans back, and I wipe filmy sweat from my palm onto my thigh.
He stares at my empty ring finger, pauses. “How’s Oliver?”
I tossed my engagement ring into the same drawer that holds my father’s newspaper articles. The drawer feels like a grave now. Sometimes I find myself rubbing my ring finger with my thumb, delighting at its emptiness.
“Great.”
His eyes travel pointedly to my ringless finger. “Let me guess,” he says, clicking his tongue, amused. “He dumped you after your on-air freak-out?”
“No, I left him before that. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“What made you do it?”
“Do what?”
He folds his arms across his chest. “Throw something at Joy Marriot. Allegedly.”
“I take a lot, Chris,” I tell him truthfully. “I take a lot until I can’t take any more.”
“Fair enough,” he says, and for the first time since I stepped inside, he looks at me with real interest. “Why her, though?”
“She’s ripping off her cancer charity. I can prove it.”
His face goes still, expression frozen between confusion and disbelief. Then his eyes widen and a lip curls back like a shark on the hunt. “So that’s why the studio’s keeping it quiet. Lucky for you.”
“And you,” I tell him. “Because you’re going to break the news.”
The studio called this morning. We’ve agreed to part ways, quietly. No termination, no lawsuit. Just a clean break. I won’t expose Joy, and they’ll make a brief LinkedIn announcement, wishing me well as I “pursue new opportunities.”
I agreed.
I won’t expose Joy.
Chris will.
There’s a small, almost invisible tension in his jaw, a flicker of anticipation in the way he leans forward. His voice is careful. Measured. Like he’s not desperate to know, like he hasn’t smelled the blood in the air. “Melanie, dear, would you like to tell me a bit more about that?”
“Not yet.” I pause. “And my real name is Minnow, by the way. Greenwood.”
His eyebrows lift instinctively, like he’s not sure if I’m joking. When he realizes I’m not, he laughs, but it’s hollow, reflexive. A laugh that says,Give me a second, I wasn’t ready for that.
“I reached out to a Greenwood about the attack,” he says thoughtfully. “The charter captain?”
“Heath,” I say unwillingly. “My brother.”
“He wasn’t very helpful.”
“Why should he be?”
“The other captain was. Talked my ear off, but wouldn’t let me quote him directly. Chatty fella, Luke Newton.”
“Luke’s a bit different from the rest of us.”
I don’t tell Chris I was there that night. I don’t want him sidetracked. I need him to follow my lead, not his.
He runs a hand through his brick hair, his silence thick anddisapproving. “Okay…well, do you have any other massive surprises you feel like dropping while you’re at it?” He tilts his head, subtly, staring at my tattoo, like he’s reevaluating me, reevaluating everything. “Why the name change?”
