“His plane?” Grace raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah. He has a little jet. Why?”
“Did it occur to you maybe he had the plane stop in Philly on purpose?”
“I did wonder about that,” Natalie confessed.
“I think it was intentional,” Grace said.
“It’s not important.” Natalie lifted Daisy from her seat. “Come on, Daisy. Let’s find your sneakers. I’ll walk into town with you and Nana to look for special Band-Aids.”
“And I’m going to work on Liddy’s website before this day gets any weirder. You should have taken a screenshot of him in that costume. Any one of those gossipy entertainment rags or TV shows would have paid you handsomely.” Grace paused to plant a kiss on Daisy’s head as she left the room.
There were no Olaf Band-Aids to be found at the general store or the pharmacy, but a stop at the ice-cream shop served just as well to heal Daisy’s toe. After they returned to the house, Maggie headed out back to do some weeding in her garden. Daisy wanted to help, so the two of them went outside. Natalie grabbed a book from the stack she’d brought with her from home and went out to the front porch. She pulled one of the rocking chairs closer to the porch rail, sat, and rested her legs on the railing. Fifteen minutes later, she realized she was still staring at the first page.
She’d known Maggie would ask her about her relationship with Chris on that walk into town, so she’d prepared herself, but when her mother asked, “So how long have you been seeing Chris, and does Emma know?” Natalie forgot her rehearsed lines.
“We’ve been in touch since Grace and I went to his concert,” she’d responded honestly. “And no, Emma doesn’t know.”
“Is there a reason neither of you mentioned it to your mother?”
“Yes. So you wouldn’t be asking the questions you’re asking now. So you wouldn’t think we had some great romance going on. We don’t. We’re just friends.”
“How often has this ‘friend’ found his way to Philly on his private jet?”
“Several times.”
“Well, let’s see. Several is more than a couple, which would be two. So somewhere between three and whatever?”
“Yeah. Three and whatever.” Natalie laughed. “Four. He’s stopped in four times.”
“Four times in the past month?”
Natalie nodded.
“And . . . ?” Maggie gestured for her to continue.
“And . . . he calls. We FaceTime. We text.” Natalie could have added, At least once a day, every day. But best to play it down. “No big deal.”
“Okay. No big deal.” Maggie had turned her attention to Daisy, who’d stopped walking and was about to pick one of the neighbor’s prized peonies. “Those are not ours, Daisy. You can help me pick our own flowers when we get back to the house.”
And that had been the extent of the conversation about her relationship with Chris. It was more complex, more nuanced than she’d let on, but she was conflicted about her own feelings. She knew he cared about her—he’d said as much—but she also knew he’d been seeing some high-profile women. She’d have died before she’d admit it, but she’d become addicted to those gossipy TV shows. She’d yet to pass by any supermarket magazine that had Chris’s face on the cover without picking one up. Last week she’d actually found herself hiding in the paper goods aisle hunched over a tabloid story about how he’d rescued an ex-girlfriend from suicide after he’d dumped her via text—a story he’d sworn was absolute rubbish when she’d chided him about it.
“Seriously, Nat? You know me better than that. Dumping someone by text? And, by the way, she dated my manager, not me. I’ve never been alone with her, I’ve never sent her a text of any kind, and if she’d tried to commit suicide, this is the first I’ve heard about it.”
“Why would they make up a story like that?”
“To sell magazines, why do you think?” He’d shrugged. “They make up crazy crap all the time so people will pick up the magazine and talk about it. Crap sells.”
Their relationship was hard to define. Yes, they were friends. The things that had drawn them to each other years ago still attracted. They both laughed at the same things. They liked the same books and movies and disliked the same television shows. They both loved Game of Thrones and had seen every episode more than once, and had read each of the books. Classic rock? Yup. Butter pecan ice cream and taco salad? Yes indeed. Environmental awareness? Absolutely. Mad Men? The Office? Seinfeld? Bring on the reruns. They saw eye to eye on almost every political issue. They never ran out of things to talk about.
One thing they didn’t agree on was where their relationship was headed. Natalie was struggling to keep things in the friend zone. Chris wanted to move it toward something else. He’d made certain she understood that, by his words and by the way he kissed her. He never left her house without kissing her goodbye and making sure she understood he was game for more, but not unless and until she was.
Then there was his reputation of being a player. As much as Natalie cared about him—wanted to test those waters with him—she had yet to determine how much of his rep was hype and how much had roots in fact. If their relationship became romantic and didn’t work out—And why would it, she asked herself over and over, because he can have his pick of anyone—how awkward would that be? How could they maintain
