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We both start smiling when I say please.
I decide that call he took in private was nothing, while he’s becoming everything.
Chapter thirty-one
Reese
Iwake Saturday morning to Cat curled next to me, that sweet floral scent of her clinging to me and the sheets, pretty much sealing the deal on morning wood. Unfortunately, my phone is also buzzing on the nightstand, and appears to be the reason I woke up. I grab it and note the seven a.m. hour and my sister’s number on the display. My cell stops ringing and she immediately sends me a text. Answer your phone, superhero. Glad you won your case, but the rest of your life calls. She means my parents’ marital problems, and that isn’t a situation I’m prepared to deal with in front of Cat, at least not until Cat and I have the “my fucked-up family” conversation. Which, to be fair, I need to have this weekend.
Knowing Stacey, she’ll call back another ten times. I ease away from Cat, careful not to wake her. I snag my pajama bottoms and T-shirt from the floor and pull them on but I don’t walk away. I stand beside the bed, staring down at Cat, fully aware that my invitation for her stay through the end of the trial has ended.
No. My excuse to have her stay. Only, I still want her here, and it’s time to have that straight up conversation. She needs to know that I don’t want to wake up or go to sleep without her next to me. I’m not letting her leave.
I round the bed and walk into the bathroom, brush my teeth, and splash water on my face. Since the meetings I set up for today when I was on my way to pick up Cat last night aren’t until after lunch, I decide coffee and Cat are on the menu. I exit to the bedroom again, and find Cat has snuggled deeper into the blankets, completely content and sound asleep. Coffee first, I decide. Cat later. I smile and head downstairs, flipping on the fireplace in the den, which is off the kitchen, before I brew a cup of coffee and set up my computer on the island. I grab a barstool at the end cap of the island, with a good view of the stairs, where Cat will eventually travel.
After keying my MacBook to life, I scan the headlines about the case and pull up Cat’s column with the intent of reading it. I also plan to make this my new morning ritual now that the trial is over and the millions of cameras are off. Now, I can admit that was a hell of a lot of pressure.
My phone rings, which I expected. I glance at caller ID and answer the call. “Hello, sunshine.”
“Answer your phone when I call,” my sister snaps.
“I was asleep. I do that occasionally.”
“Mom and Dad had a huge fight.”
“You said that yesterday when you called me on the final day of the trial of my career.”
“Yes, but now she left him. She won’t answer our calls. No one can find her. Dad’s freaking out.”
“Maybe she finally got smart and found another man,” I suggest, one of my few statements anyone could call hopeful.
“That’s your reply?” Stacey snaps. “Really, Reese?”
“I spent years battling this war with them and got the fuck out. You should too.”
“She won’t return our calls. What if something happened to her?”
“How long has it been?” I ask.
“Twelve hours.”
“She’s fine,” I say, comforting my sister, though I’m secretly worried. She doesn’t cut off her kids. Or her ass of a husband, for that matter. “She’s a fifty-five-year-old woman who’s beautiful, smart, and capable. Give her some space.”
Her phone beeps. “That’s her. I’ve gotta go.” She hangs up.
I dial my brother Dylan. “He’s got another girlfriend,” Dylan says as his greeting.
“Of course he does,” I say, weary of this topic.
“She’s thirty-two. Blonde. Beautiful. I’d fuck her. Dad’s fucking her. It’s fucked up.”
“I knew he wouldn’t change,” I say. “I don’t know why she stays. We’re all grown up now. We don’t need stability, and there was never stability in the first place.”
“Apparently, she’s not this time,” he says. “She disappeared.”
“She just called Stacey.”
“Thank God,” he says. “I had this image in my head of one of Dad’s women killing her. I’ve told him that. He’s going to pick a crazy one, one day, and there will be no turning back.”
