“We also can’t sayslutanymore,” Birdie said. “We’re entirely sex-positive.”
“Fine, whatever. He is known to appreciate the female form. But still not a liar, and I kind of can’t believe that you’ve spent seven years telling yourself that he is. You really are the queen of make-believe,” Andie said, and Birdie lifted her head and punched her in the arm. “Ow!” Andie yelped. “And also, Mona is a big girl. You should give her some credit. Or maybe the both of you should.”
It hadn’t occurred to Birdie that Mona and her sister could be friends now, though of course it made sense: both living in Barton, both with shared history.
“I don’t think she’d want either of you sacrificing on her account. You guys aren’t kids anymore,” Andie added.
Birdie sat up and inexplicably guzzled more vodka. She thought she might puke but couldn’t stop herself. “It’s not like he didn’t have the chance over the past seven years to tell me that I’d misunderstood, that I’d read the situation wrong,” she said. She thought of the kiss, of his hands on her breasts in the RV.
“Don’t forget, I met Kai.” Andie sniffed. “That one time in LA when he passed out in your guest room. I’d pick Elliot any day of the week. I’d pick Simon any day of the week over him. Fuckin’ movie star, more like a gigantic asshole.”
Simon.Shit, Elliot was leaving for Vegas in the morning to interview him. In her confession to Andie, Birdie had forgotten all about the present mess of her life, not just the past mess of it.
“Simon was a good guy,” Birdie echoed, her words getting slurry.
“Yes, but I think it’s obvious that Elliot wrote the letter,” Andie said.
“No, I asked.” Her eyelids were feeling heavy now. “Besides, it’s okay, it was all for the best.”
Once Elliot was in the elevator the morning after, Birdie dialed back down to her doorman, told him he could send Kai up.Three minutes later, there he was. Kai Carol in the foyer of her new apartment. He ran his palms over her shoulders then down her arms, where he clutched her hands and made her promises all over again. He couldn’t stay, he said, as he kissed her neck, and Birdie squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think of how Elliot had turned her to molten lava when he did the same. But he had to see her, he said. He saw pictures of her at the premiere, he said. He thought about all sorts of untoward things he wanted to do to her, he said. He was coming undone, he said, at the thought of her moving on without him. He was leaving Haley imminently, calling the “engagement” off, he said.We don’t even live together. It’s all an act, I promise.
He had a flight to catch to Rome for some junket. Birdie couldn’t remember for what now. But he asked her to wait for him, and Birdie, having already been rejected by the one man she realized she wanted but couldn’t have, found it was easier to simply nod yes. She would wait for him. She didn’t have any reason not to.
Andie was silent on the bed beside her for a long time, and Birdie thought that maybe her sister had fallen asleep. She liked that notion: that the two of them had reached a sort of peace, a comfort where they could share a bed like they were kids again. Then Andie said, “How did no one ever know this about you two?”
“About Elliot and me?” Birdie shrugged. “That wasn’t difficult. We were the only two who ever knew about it. We kept our mouths shut. I didn’t want to upset Mona when it was obvious that he’d already chosen her. What was the point?”
“No, about you and Kai Fucking Dickwad. You two combined could literally, like, provide solar power to Earth from your wattage.”
“Oh,” Birdie said. There had been rumors, of course, especially after he showed up at her Brentwood house when Andie was there. Some posturing on Reddit and various fan forums. But his team had denied everything and sent him to rehab as a distraction. He probably needed rehab all the same. A year or so later, he made one final effort—buzzing Birdie’s gate again. This time, Carter answered. That time, Birdie rebuffed him completely, but Carter wasn’t in it for half measures, and Birdie couldn’t promise him that she wasn’t complicated, that her situation wasn’t complicated.
“He wrote it,” Andie said. “He definitely wrote it. He wants to fix what happened that morning, make it right.”
“Now you thinkKaiwrote it? Not Elliot?” Birdie’s insides lurched at the possibility. Kai was her kryptonite, even all these years later, and she didn’t have the fortitude to embroil herself all over again. He’d ended the years-long engagement, faked or otherwise, finally, but he’d never reached out to Birdie afterward. Not even when his brother publicly eviscerated her, not even when she could have used his defense. Or maybe hehadreached out by sending her an anonymous letter, and maybe it had taken her years to find it because she never went home.
“No, idiot. Elliot,” Andie said. “Or at least, he wrote one of them. Maybe both of them?”
“He’s called nine times today,” Birdie said. “I never picked up.”
“If he calls again,” Andie said.
“If he calls again,” Birdie said, finishing her sentence, “then I will.”
They passed out. Elliot never called.
37
ELLIOT
Elliot gave Birdiethe benefit of the doubt and waited for her in Mona’s driveway until 10 a.m. It was a long drive to Vegas, and he’d booked a room at Simon’s hotel, which meant with a stop for gas and assuming the RV didn’t blow, they’d get there right around check-in time. He didn’t want to wait any longer.
Birdie had been clear—she was out. Just like she’d been clear that night when they’d finally been together. He’d thought they could discuss it the next morning; thought he could tell her what Mona had said, that he had every intention of making this stick, making it last. Birdie was unlike any other woman he’d been with, cared about. She was an inexplicable mix of quixotic and dramatic and hilarious and self-conscious and completely liberated. She was droll and pithy and funny, both unintentionally and also because she could deliver a line perfectly, and he couldn’t explain it—their draw toward each other—she felt like his missing half, for no tangible reason other than that they clicked. The ephemeral, inexplicable magic of falling in love.
But there was Mona, on the phone when he went out for bagels while Birdie was still sleeping. She’d just called as a check-in, surprised that she hadn’t heard from him in several days. She hadn’t meant anything by it, the call. Didn’t have an ulterior motive. In fact, she didn’t say anything about Birdie because she, of course, didn’t even know that Elliot had spent the night exploring every millimeter of Birdie’s skin, committing every noise, every nuance, every nook of her body to memory. That night, they’d drifted off for a few minutes but he woke around 2 a.m. and just rolled to his side and stared, and she must have sensed it because she fluttered awake; she said, “You’re still here,” and her electric smile illuminated every angle on her face, and he said, “I’d stay forever if I could.” And she said, “Well, I wouldn’t be against that,” and then he reached for her, his hands on her lower back, then her hips, then anywhere else he could make her crazy with.
But the next morning, Mona was in his ear, and Elliot remembered her boundary, one of the few things his sister had ever asked of him. Women were not a rare commodity for Elliot, even if Birdie was. How difficult was it—how deeply had he betrayed his sister—to covet the one woman he shouldn’t have? Mona was the only family he had left now, and so he paid for the bagels and talked himself into leaving Birdie behind, although he didn’t know if he had the guts, the fortitude, to do it. It turned out, he didn’t have to—she never gave him the chance to figure out how he could stay. He’d always thought that if they’d decided together, united, they could have figured out a way. Ithadto be the two of them if they were going to face Mona, and when Birdie didn’t even try, Elliot told himself that he’d gotten it all wrong. Birdie could have had anyone by then. Why did he imagine that it would be him?
Today in the driveway, Birdie wasn’t going to show. And Elliotintrinsically knew it. Still, that didn’t mean it didn’t pierce him—that Birdie could untangle herself from him again so easily—and the cut ran deep, slicing right through.
