“Seriously?”
I lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s good to have someone looking out for you,” I told her.
“Hey,” she said. “Do we need to take one of those guys with us?” She angled her head toward where Jack was standing, holding the chicken to his chest.
I shook my head. “They’re Juliet’s. I don’t need them and they don’t work for me anyway.” I lifted a hand to Jack. “Be back in a bit!”
He waved at me and Chessy let out a squawk. I heard him shushing her as I followed Tess.
As we walked toward the garage, which was a three-bay building set apart from the house, I dropped a hand lightly on Tess’s lower back, keeping pace by her side. She stiffened at the contact at first, and I remembered too late that she’d asked me not to touch her. I took my hand away, whispering, “Sorry.”
Tess shot a glance up at me, as if trying to read my intention in my eyes. “It’s okay,” she said, and I hoped she could see some part of the way I might feel about her on my face. The gesture had been natural, almost protective.
We climbed into her mini Cooper and she maneuvered us out of the garage and down the long driveway between the fields. I fought the urge to touch her again, but admired the way her leg flexed and moved as she drove, her muscles stretching the dark denim. Soon we were trundling down curving country roads, huge green trees leaning toward us from either side. The sides of the road were shadowy and dark, a dense verdant wood stretching out on either side of us, twisting with vines and low brush. “It’s so different from California,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Yeah?” Tess asked, smiling.
“You’ve never been?” Surprise lifted my voice. I’d have thought she would have visited her sister at some point. I liked the idea that maybe someday I could be the one to show her California for the first time.
“Nah. That’s Juliet’s thing. I’m happy here.” It was a simple statement, and I turned to see Tess’s face glow as she said it. “This is home,” she added.
I nodded, wishing I knew what that meant. Home. I understood the idea, the concept. I’d just never really had a home myself, never felt like I belonged anywhere enough to stay. “Must be nice,” I said.
“What?” Tess asked, swinging her gaze to mine and then finding the road again.
“Feeling so at home that you don’t want to leave,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Out west. My dad traveled for work and got assigned to new territories a lot. We lived in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas for a while. A little time in California. That was when I ran away.” This wasn’t something I shared with a lot of people. I let the information out and watched for her reaction.
Surprise lifted her brows and turned her mouth into a tiny circle. “Ran away?”
“I didn’t want to move again.”
“But your family …?”
“It was just me and Dad by then. Mom got tired of moving a long time before. I called her first, to see if I could live with her. She stayed in Nevada …” I trailed off. I hadn’t really intended to get into all this today, but it felt so natural to share it with Tess. I wanted her to know me, even the parts of me that weren’t glamorous and clean.
“But …?” Tess looked at me.
I forced my voice to sound light. “She figured she was all done parenting by then, I guess.” I swallowed hard, keeping the smile on my face. I stared out the window for a minute, remembering the hard finality in my mother’s words when she’d told me that she didn’t want me. It still hurt, tearing something inside me every time I thought of it. I sucked in a breath, and was thankful when I felt the air shift as Tess readied another question.
“So why are you doing it?” The question came out harsh, and Tess turned her head, glaring at me for a brief moment before turning back to look out at the road.
“Doing …?”
“Pretending to date my sister.”
I knew I’d have to explain myself at some point. Might as well get it out of the way. “It was her agent’s idea. I had a small role in the last film she did and there was chemistry. On screen, at least. The media liked it and some false rumors got started. Her agent thought we could capitalize on those and try to keep the sharks fed so they won’t go sniffing around where they shouldn’t.”
“You mean the divorce.”
“Right.”
“What’s in it for you, though?” She sounded less accusatory now, and I felt my nerves unspool a little bit.
“A part in her next film as the romantic lead, mostly. A career boost. A chance to be as successful as I’ve always thought I wanted to be.” It was the story I’d told myself over and over. But no matter how famous I’d gotten so far, it didn’t seem to change much. People knowing who you were wasn’t the same as someone really knowing you. I was nowhere near as famous as Juliet, but the little taste I’d gotten so far tasted a lot like loneliness.
And the real answer wasn’t that I wanted success. It was that I needed money. Enough money that my dad could live someplace where he’d be safe and taken care of. Someplace nice.
Tess seemed to be satisfied with my half-answer, and she drove in silence now. I watched the dense woods fly by either side of the car, wishing I could bring her smile back.
“Any Sasquatch sightings down here?” I asked. “I can totally imagine catching a glimpse of him running through these dense woods.”
Tess’s laughter
