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Not a problem. We can handle this.
Totallynota problem.
Chapter Two
Deanna
Major problem.
100 percent, colossal, Category 5 hurricane problem.
Lexi says nothing as we take the elevator to the parking garage, get in the car, and drive out.
She says nothing on the twenty-minute ride home.
Even when we turn onto the hill of Huntington Hills, she says nothing. She stares at the radio as it spins competing narratives: ballads professing the beauty of love between girl power anthems and odes to the almighty dollar.
We park right as “She Works Hard for the Money” finishes, as if the universe is trying to tell Lexi to put finances first.
Or maybe that’s me. Love songs never move me. They dwell in cliches or lack specificity. Money songs, too, but at least money makes sense.
Money is logical. Money is practical. Money never leaves because you’re too detached or too busy with work or too unable to let your guard down. People do.
But Lexi isn’t any of those things. And even though she’s a bit superficial at times, she’s not moved by the digits in her bank account. Our bank account. Lexi wanted to work on MeetCute with me because she wanted to workwith me, because I promised her that we could make it into something great.
When Mom was dying, she didn’t ask me to smile through the pain or pretend she wasn’t losing strength. She only asked me for one thing: to take care of Lexi.
For a decade and a half, that’s what I’ve done. I have to do it now, too. I have to make sure my sister gets the best deal possible, creates the best life possible, finds the best partner possible.
“When is Jake arriving?” I ask as I turn into our neighborhood.
Lexi stares out the window, watching apartments fade into two-story houses. Then into massive places like ours. “Later.”
“You two can stop by the party to say hi to Willa?” I ask.
“I guess.”
“It’s a party,” I say. “I know Dad has too many and they can all start to feel the same, but this will be fun.”
She deflates. She sinks into her seat for the rest of the drive.
After I park, Lexi struggles out of the car. She picks up her pink purse and her laptop bag, and then presses her palm against the door of my silver Tesla. “Six months is a long time.”
“You’re almost there,” I say.
“But that’s all I want,” she says. “Six months, and I get my five percent. No commitment beyond that. If we stay together, fine. If we don’t, fine. I don’t want to write any of this in stone.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t I? She wants him topropose.”
“The dinner is four weeks away,” I say. “You only need to keep him around for a month.”
She rolls her eyes. “Because after we sign, I’m sure they’ll forget all about their quest for a poster couple. It’ll be totally cool for their pride and joy to break up.”
Probably not. But after we sign, we have the money. There’s no way they’ll write the contract with the provision that Lexi and Jake have to stay together. That’s unethical, even by tech billionaire standards. “They can’t do anything once we sign.”
“But they can, Dee. That’s what you don’t see. Other people don’t respect the letter of the law the way you do.”
