“It’s delicate in the way that Juliette doesn’t exactly know that we’re doing this right now.”
“She doesn’t know that we’re doing this? Then why are we even here? Shouldn’t you be home, working on your play?”
“It’s fine. I have everything covered.”
“Really? Because that’s hardly the view from my seat, if you pardon the pun.” I roll my eyes and look out at the highway before us as he goes on. “You told me last night that today was your last chance to finish your play.”
“I may have said that.”
“So why are you now dead-set on some self-appointed assignment that my aunt knows nothing about? Did you submit the play this morning and we’re now going on a celebratory joyride?”
“Don’t worry about the contest,” I answer, more defensively than I would like. “We’re driving into Surrey because I tracked down Juliette’s first love/once-fiancé, and I’m going to find out if he misses her as much as she misses him.”
Then Liam nearly swerves off the road.
He immediately steadies us as he stares ahead with large, panicked eyes, only turning to send me a couple of quick, sharp looks.
“Are you out of your mind?” he exclaims. “My aunt is a social extrovert who is also an emotional introvert, and she is going to be furious if she finds out that you’re doing this. Not to mention that you’ve tricked me into being an accomplice and the getaway driver. I’m turning back. This is a terrible, completely inappropriate bad idea.”
His eyes then dart up to the side of the road, no doubt searching for the nearest exit.
“No, listen to me!” I tell him. “There’s no way Juliette is ever going to know about this unless Paul feels the same way that I know she does.”
“You know that for a fact? She flat-out told you that she misses this mysterious Paul?”
Now, this is where he may get upset.
“Not exactly, but I could tell.”
“You could tell,” he repeats disbelievingly. “She’s going to kill you, Winnie. No, she’s going to fire you, then kill you, and then kill me when she’s done. Then my mother will have no choice but to demand satisfaction and challenge her to hand-to-hand combat to avenge me, in which case one or both of them will also die. You will have single-handedly wiped out my entire family in one deft swoop. Your grand romantic gesture is nothing more but a homicidal volcano waiting to erupt.”
“Okay, simmer down, Hamlet on crack. No one is going to die, because we are going to be wildly discreet. The only thing onlookers will remember about us today is that thePink Panthertheme music drifted down from the ether every time you and I entered or exited a room.”
Liam shakes his head, in no way convinced.
“I do not support this decision. I don’t support it at all. I vehemently oppose the motion.”
“Just listen to me,” I try again. “I know Juliette better than I know myself. She has been content enough and successful, but there has also been a void in her life. I never knew what was supposed to be there, but now I know that it was Paul. So if there’s even the slightest chance that I can in some way help her get the full life she deserves, I’m going to take it.”
“And what about the contest? Was all that effort for nothing?”
I look at Liam and feel painfully speechless. “I guess I’m not ready to get rejected all over again,” I force myself to admit. “I thought I could enter the contest, but I can’t. I wish I was braver, but I’m not.”
Liam slowly shakes his head. “I think by not entering, you’re setting yourself up for an even bigger disappointment.”
I avert my eyes, turning to face the window instead of facing the reality that he’s holding up in front of my face. Still, regardless of the repercussions, I’ve made my choice, and I’m going to see things through.
“That may be the case, but it is what it is, and I’m not going to change my mind. And as far as today, if you now don’t want to be part of it, I understand. You can drop Ollie and me off wherever. We’ll take a cab the rest of the way.”
Seconds tick by with neither of us saying anything, the gentle hum of the radio now sounding out of place, until Liam suddenly speaks.
“You can’t honestly think that I’d just drop you off on the side of the road because we’re having a disagreement. If this is what you want to do, then I’ll go with it. We’re in this together.”
I turn to gaze at him, his words filling me with a sense of reassurance that I grip onto with every fiber of my being. He gives me a quick smile before focusing back on the road.
“But just know that if this ill-advised crusade goes awry, I’m going to be very upset when I get raked over the coals by my aunt and mother. I know I seem like a tough alpha male, but I promise you, I will both poutandsulk.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
