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“Right. I’ll keep my phone nearby.” He ends the call.
And I get up and start gathering our things.
A few minutes later, I hear him on the phone again.
“Just Jeannie blog? Yeah, not a shocker.” His voice drifts away as he steps into the hallway.
I wait for him to come back in.
“Just Jeannie?” I whisper.
“Jeannie Gilligan. Your ex’s ex.”
I frown. Jeannie?
“The one whose sister got murdered by Hallman’s uncle. So, clearly she’s feeling unhinged after his death if she hasn’t got the good sense to realize she’s fucking with my family in an effort to lash out at you.”
I blink a couple times as this permeates. The little girl who was killed by Adam’s uncle was Jeannie’s sister? What?
I finish packing up our things, mind scattered, hands shaky. It’s all I can do to make sure I remember everything.
I tie my hair up into a ponytail as Derek speaks to the driver that drove us earlier. I hear him give out gate and garage door codes to the driver, who will be bringing everything back to the house, putting it into the garage until we get back later.
Someone brought his SUV here and he got the hotel to put our meals into to-go containers and pack up our wine for later, too. Derek hands the food to Neil, telling him to enjoy the meals with his girlfriend tonight, that we’ll get food on the road. He opens the SUV passenger door, takes my hand, and leads me in.
“What are we even doing?” I mumble after we’ve been on the road for a while.
Derek hasn’t said a word. In fact, he seems like he’s a million miles away. He hasn’t tried to hold my hand or have any sort of conversation.
“I’m taking care of it,” he says.
My phone has been chiming nonstop with messages from Coraline, Maddie, Jeffy, which I haven’t answered or read.
Derek had a phone call come in that had him pull over at a rest stop and walk around the parking lot while I went inside, used the restroom, and purchased coffees for us.
He looked surprised when I handed him one.
He then ended his call and went inside, too, presumably to also use a restroom, and then got us back on the road. That was five or ten minutes ago.
“You’ll take care of it how?” I ask.
His eyes bounce to me and travel my face for a beat before they return to the road.
He straightens up. “Not to worry,” he states, reaching over and squeezing my knee briefly. “I can be quite charming when the situation calls for it.”
I stare at him, a little thrown by that understatement and unsure of what to make of him. Ever since he pulled me out of the tub all panicked, he’s been off.
He’s not all smiles. All charm. No sparkle in his gaze right now. But I haven’t been able to make sense of Derek since we met, so really, what’s different?
He glances at the navigation screen, and I frown because it says we’ll be arriving at our destination in twenty-one minutes.
How the heck am I going to explain this to my parents?
He puts his SUV in park, and I cap my lipstick and shove it into my bag. I’ve put some light makeup on to try to make my face slightly more presentable, but I feel anything but ready. My palms are sweaty. I rub them on my legs and unclip my seatbelt.
Derek’s hand lands on my knee and he squeezes gently.
“Hey?”
