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Holli snuck behind the screen while I was getting dressed. I heard Deja and my mom talking somewhere else in the studio. Holli’s eyes were more huge than usual. “I. Am. So. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I lied. I didn’t know what I was going to do now. I couldn’t out Neil to my mom, and I wasn’t sure he wanted anyone to know about the book, anyway. I’d just have to do what I could to isolate the damage.
“No, seriously, I feel like such a piece of shit friend, right now.” She stopped herself. “Sorry. I was making that all about me.”
I waved her off. “I’ll just give her a Cliff’s Notes version and tell her to forget about it. She won’t say anything to him.”
Still, my stomach was pitching when we got into the car.
“Thank you, Tony,” Mom said as she slipped into her seat. When he closed the door, she turned to me. “So, what’s this about a book?” Her eyes glittered with excitement. “Are you going to write another one?”
“Uh, no. It’s this other book.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “It’s this really, really shitty thing someone is doing to Neil. One of his exes is writing a book and included some personal details about Neil that are really sensitive.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom clucked her tongue. “That’s just terrible. Is Neil okay?”
“Not at
all. So, please, don’t let him know that you know. We had intended to keep it private for now.”
“Yeah, no trouble.” The concern etched into her face deepened. “It’s not the ex I met at the party, is it?”
“Valerie? No.” I pretended to look at something outside, rather than meet her eyes. “It’s just someone he knew when he was in college.”
“Well, that’s just stupid. Who cares what someone did in college?” Mom’s bracelets clinked, so I knew without looking that she was talking with her hands. “Kids hook up in college, they party—”
“They pick up forty-two-year-old men in airports,” I said, just to get a rise out of her.
She wasn’t having it. “Sophie Anne.”
“No regrets!” I punched the air over my head, but ended up punching the roof of the car instead. I whimpered and shook my hand out.
“Serves you right,” Mom grumbled.
“So,” I began, smoothly moving past the subject of the book. “What do you think of the dress?”
“I think it probably costs as much as a house back home,” she said then followed immediately with, “And I think you’ll look gorgeous.”
I sighed happily and settled back against the seat.
“I just hope Neil doesn’t think you’re planning to repurpose it for his funeral,” she said, and snorted.
“Are you cracking on Neil for being old?” That was a sign of affection in my family. It warmed my heart now. I grabbed my phone and opened my notes app.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked, leaning toward me with a suspicious arch of her brow.
“I’m writing it down,” I said, my tongue darting to the corner of my mouth. “Because I can’t wait to tell Neil that you made a snark out of love, but I have to save it until after he’s seen the dress.”
* * * *
When we got home, Neil wasn’t around. Granted, our house is big enough that he might have been around somewhere and I just hadn’t run into him yet, but he wasn’t in any of his usual hangouts. I called Tony’s phone.
“Try the garage,” he suggested. “Do you want a ride out there?”
“No, I think I’ve got it.” It would be a tad spoiled of me to have our driver ferry me around the property. I bundled back up in my coat and hurried down the driveway, turning where it forked, trying not to slip and bust my ass in my form-over-function leather boots.
Neil’s garage is really more like an airplane hangar. Inside, rows of cars with names that were familiar to me—Maserati, Lamborghini, Ferrari—and names that weren’t—Pagoni, Bugatti, Zenvo—shined, their paint like wet candy under the glaring lights. My footsteps echoed off the polished concrete. The sensitive acoustics of the room helped me locate Neil by the sound of a socket wrench turning. I found him kneeling, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, beside one of his Aston Martins. He didn’t look up when I leaned against the car and looked down at him.
“Hey, I was looking for you. You weren’t answering your phone.” I lifted my gaze and saw that phone lying on the floor, not fifteen feet from him. “Do you have your ringer turned off?”
