“I’ve told you… Summer is Quinn’s nanny. I was working late and didn’t want to make her drive home in the dark.” That’s half the truth anyway.
“That’s not what it looked like from this photograph they snapped!” Something crinkles on her end.
She printed it?
I don’t really care what the reporters think they saw. What I want to know is whyshedoes.
“What is it you’re worried about exactly? That it looks like I’m moving on from your daughter, or that I’ll tarnish your family name with you connected to me?”
“I am protecting?—”
“The only person you’re protecting here is yourself. And for your information, I accidentally fell asleep in my studio, and Summer stayed on the couch out of the goodness of heart for Quinn. So, Caroline, I’m going to say this, and I’m only going to say it once: What I choose to do with my life is none of your business. I’ve gathered over the years that I’m not your favorite person and you don’t carry a lot of respect for my chosen career. All of that is fine with me. I don’t need you to love it. But if you want to have a relationship with Quinn, you need to have apositive one with me. And I need you to stay the hell out of my personal business. We’ll see you on Sunday at one.”
I hang up while I’m still ahead. Before I can say anything more and potentially regret it. I know I’m throwing myself under the stack of buses weighing down Caroline Blackwood’s opinion of me, but it’s clear the boundaries need red ink to be visible to her.
The only thing I regret about that conversation is not going into another room with a closed door to have it. Summer is standing at the bottom of the stairs staring at her phone.
20
SUMMER
I’ve read a lot of Rhett Dawson articles over the years. Some of them surprising, most of them not. The only difference with this one is… my name’s attached to it.
The headline on the homepage ofCelebreads: “Can Someone Say New Mommy?”
It’s followed by:Lines are blurring, and boundaries are crossed. Rhett Dawson entertains overnight guest in his childhood home on Harrison Boulevard. Summer Rogers, a recently divorced woman he hired to be the nanny of his four-year-old daugh?—
“Don’t read that.” Everett snatches my phone and marches toward the kitchen.
I follow him. “Excuse me? That article is about me. I think I have every right to see what it says.”
He stops and turns, making me rebound off his chest. I stumble before he steadies me.
“They’ll stop talking if they see your car here every night.”
I squint at his unflinching response. “Wait… you want me tomove in?”
“Yes,” he confirms.
His cool confidence stuns me. I barely think before my biggest concern comes tumbling out of my mouth.
“Me living here won’t stop those reporters from assuming we’re?—”
“It’s a tabloid, Summer. All they do is assume.”
Right. It’s all I do too, I guess. I thought it would bother him more than it seems to be. More than it’s botheringme. That article stripped me down to nothing more than a floozy sleeping with her boss. It’s not the kind of fresh start I was hoping to have post-divorce. It can’t be the image he wants tied to his family either.
“Did Caroline put you up to this?” I heard his side of their heated conversation. I can see her suggesting a publicity cover up: Convince Summer to move in to change the narrative.
“What? No. This has nothing to do with her. It’s what I was going to ask you before she called.”
He pulls out his chair at the kitchen table, sits down, and takes a bite of the breakfast I made him.
“Thenwhy? There’s only three weeks left of this arrangement,” gusts out of my mouth next.I’m the impulsive one, not you.Moving in is something I would suggest if he needed more help.Does he?Because he won’t ask for it if he does.
He sets down his half-eaten slab of bacon, wipes his hand on a napkin, and looks right at me. “I’d like you to move in so that if I end up out in my studio past dark again, you have a comfortable bed and pajamas. Unless you have a habit of sleeping in…that.”
His subtle joke about my dress does little to hide his nerves when he swallows. This is about last night. He’s afraid he put me out when I slept on his couch. The truth is, I’d do it all over again if it meant he’d be okay. I tell him as much by saying, “I slept in something of this nature my entire twenties,and I was fine.”
