Page 122 of Rhodes

"I could tell the truth," I say. "But the truth means telling them I've been sleeping with Coop's best friend since Italy and hiding it from everybody. Then Rhodes becomes the story, and suddenly every decision I’ve made for the last two months gets looked at like maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

I look at her, then shake my head. “No. Oak Moss stays about Oak Moss."

“I don’t like talking to my family about who I’m sleeping with either, so I get it. Why do they need to know that, anyway?”

“Exactly. And if I tell them Rhodes made the call, then suddenly he becomes the story instead of Oak Moss.”

“Yeah. Okay. I get why you’d do it.”

"Once they think it's me, I can steer it. Grandbank holds the title. Grandbank has to ask in writing to close the review. That's what needs to happen. The rest of it isn't necessary to get him to do that."

We talk about it for a while longer until my throat hurts. I've had enough. She offers to get me water and for us to find something to watch to take our minds off all this.

There's nothing that will take my mind off Oak Moss and fixing this and how Rhodes did all of this. But I happily agree to a show so we can stop talking about it.

While she is downstairs getting water, I open the airline app and book a flight to Charleston for Thursday, after my lab, because I want one clear day between his face and my grandfather's.

This weekend, I'm going to sit across from Grandbank and Daddy, and tell them I started something I didn't understand at the time. Daddy will believe it because he's already said as much.

That hurts more than I'd like to admit, but it is what it is.

I'll be exactly the girl they already think I am long enough to clean up this mess.

TWENTY-NINE

Rhodes

The Same Hand: A builder's habits repeat across every house he ever worked on, which is how a preservationist can name him a century later. They rarely identify him by his best work. They identify him by the mistake he made every single time.

I haven't been home in four days.

My bags are still zipped on the floor beside the bed at Creston House because unpacking would make this intentional. I pull another clean shirt off the top and leave the rest where they are.

Upstairs, Creston is all old New Orleans money and ghost-story bullshit, a nineteenth-century Garden District mansion the family opens for tours twice a week and rents out for weddings and parties. Underneath it is Dad's contribution to the architecture, a bunker big enough to keep the Stones underground for a year if the world ever went to hell.

Apparently fucking up my own life qualifies, too.

Nobody's using the place this week, except Reeves, who comes to swim before work at the ass crack of dawn, so I've made it my temporary abode.

I walk down the hall to the kitchen and put the stainless stovetop percolator over the gas. It isn't my coffee pot at home, and the coffee is worse for it, but it will do.

Tallulah hasn't answered a call or text since before we talked at Tulane on Tuesday. She didn't tell me to stay away from the house. I did that part myself.

By ten, I can't stand another minute underground, alone in my own head.

Deuce sent a group text last night about pickleball at City Park, which I ignored because I hate pickleball and don't feel like being social. I find it, though, because I need something.

I'm coming out if y'all need another body. Or I'll just watch you losers. I need to get some fresh air.

The courts are already busy when I pull in. Deuce has commandeered one with Ford and two guys I know from Loyola. There are enough paddles leaning against the fence to make this look more serious than anything involving a plastic ball deserves to be.

Deuce spots me first. "Look who crawled out of his hole."

"Good morning to you, too, meathead."

He throws me a paddle. I catch it because that seemed like a better option than letting it hit me.

Ford's at the net. He lifts his chin at me, and I start toward the court. Then I see Jo sitting in the shade in the back corner. She's on the low wall outside the fence with sunglasses pushed into her hair and a cup of something in her hand.