“But I need you not to mention it to Evie. Yes, top secret. Exactly.”
Whit smiled at Merritt, then asked his question of Édouard the lawyer.
“What do you know about sending a cease-and-desist letter?”
When he hung up, Merritt did kiss him. Gently, at first, and then the kiss grew deeper and more urgent. Eventually, they paused to breathe, and she met Whit’s eyes, which were both soft and bright with an unspoken question. He must have seen the answer reflected in her own, because he stood and took her hand. She walked beside him as they went upstairs, abandoning her tea to slowly grow cold.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next day, Whit was waiting for her in the driveway with an eagerness that made her grin.
“You’re obsessed with me,” she joked, after they’d kissed beside her car.
“Wow, okay,” he said, turning to walk up the porch.
“It’s going to be hard for you to focus today, I can tell.”
But in the end, it was Merritt who had trouble. For an hour at least, she tried to write the death scene. She was still waiting for something to click, to have some indication that Ursula’s creator would’ve approved of her impulse to kill off the half-fairy. She’d asked Whit whether he had checked Helen’s email for clues, and of course he had: the inbox, the sent folder, the drafts, the trash, all of it. There was nothing.
They spent some time reading back over the last four or so chapters they’d written, wondering whether the story could possibly lead in a different direction, waiting for a different narrative thread to tug at them both. They drank more tea, they watched the rain, they kissed again. Then it was time to go and get Annie from the nanny share.
“Why don’t you come?” Whit said. “She’d be happy to see you, and we can keep talking about Ursula.”
Merritt did not need much convincing. She suggested they make a tumbler of hot chocolate for Annie on this dreary day.
“Let’s take the jeep,” she said, once they were in the garage.
“It’s raining.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is this one of those famous two-wheel-drive jeeps everyone’s always talking about?”
He rolled his eyes. “No, but it gets kind of cold—”
“Whit,” she said, placing a hand on his upper arm. He looked at her. He smiled.
“Live a little?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
So they took the jeep and listened to the National as Merritt watched the rain toss about the branches of trees, which were now almost entirely bare.
“Surprise,” Whit said when Annie popped into the backseat. Merritt twisted around.
“We brought you hot chocolate.”
Annie’s eyes grew wide and excited, then narrowed.
“Any marshmallows?”
“Just say thank you, please,” Whit laughed.
Merritt laughed, too, and Annie buzzed from the back, chattering about the day’s miniature dramas, and for a moment Merritt felt like she had slipped outside herself, pulling away from the doom and gloom of Ian Hoult and the strange twists and turns in her life. And again, she realized, she was happy. The car was warm, the windows were pleasantly fogged. Annie was joyful. Whit was good. And she was a part of it.
Whit was content as he drove home, Merritt in the passenger seat, Annie leaning over the console with the hot chocolate tumbler in both hands. Mostly Merritt and Annie talked, rehashing the plot of the latest Kate DiCamillo book, which Kathleen Pryor had pressed into Annie’s hands, and which she had read in less than twenty-fourhours.
“Is your car broken down again?” Annie asked eventually.
They were nearing the house now, and it was getting close to dark, especially with all the rain.
