She gave him a sheepish look. “In three months.”
He sat back. “Cananyonewrite a book in that amount of time?”
“It’s possible,” she said. “But it won’t be easy—especially for a newbie like me.”
When he got home, Julian found his mother sitting on the couch in a robe watching TV. “Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“Went to bed.”
“It’s barely ten. He feeling okay?”
Although his mother was sitting in the dark, the TV made it possible to see her face as the colored lights flickered across it. “I think so. He got up early. And he typically beats me to bed these days.”
“You weren’t waiting up forme...” Julian said. She’d been so interested when he’d said he was going to visit Charlotte, he’d half expected it.
“Maybe I was,” she admitted with a laugh. “I’ve been curious. How’d it go with Charlotte?”
“Better than I expected. She’s resilient. She has a tough road ahead of her, but she’ll rise to the occasion.”
“She must’ve been surprised to see you. It’s been a long time.”
“Since the summer we graduated from high school.” They’d made the most of those final, sun-filled days by lying out at Charlotte’s pool, playing sand volleyball at the beach, going on their friend Trevor’s sailboat—his parents were even richer than Charlotte’s—and partying with another friend whose parents were always going out of town. So being back in LA conjured up memories that’d made him eager to reconnect.
“Even Sloane hasn’t talked to Charlotte for a while,” his mother said.
“It’s been over a year.”
“Why, do you think? Sloane and Charlotte were always so close.”
“Sloane says Cliff cut her out. She claims he would only accept his own family and friends. To get along with him, Charlotte had to become part of his world and leave her own behind.”
“It would be easy to resent that.”
Julian nodded. “But she was trying so hard to make her marriage work, I got the impression she never even considered the cost.”
She adjusted the small blanket draped over her lap. “Is that why her parents have been so reticent about their son-in-law?”
“I didn’t know theyhadbeen reticent.”
“We ran into them at a charity function—a firefighter’s fund raiser—last summer. Everyone was excited to hear about the NBA star who’d joined their family, but they didn’t say much, didn’t seem all that happy to have such a close connection with him, which took me by surprise.”
“They were probably sorry to see their only child marry someone who wouldn’t accept them into his life.”
“Makes sense. Penny seemed kind of sad, to be honest.”
Julian thought of the shots his friend had gotten tonight. He couldn’t wait until they were splashed all over the internet to show Cliff that Charlotte would be just fine without him. The friend he’d asked to take those shots would be compensated, since he’d be able to sell them for a good price, so everyone came out a winner—except Cliff, who deserved a dose of his own medicine. “Now that he’s moved on, Charlotteandher parents are better off.”
“It’s hard to be tossed aside.”
“She’ll get over it eventually.” He started to cross the room to the hallway, but she spoke again.
“Did you tell her?”
He knew what his mother was talking about; the gravity in her voice made her meaning clear. “No.”
She twisted around to face him. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t wantanyoneto know—other than you, me and Dad.”
