Part 6 (1/2)
”Ohio?”
”Yeah. Here's the thing, though, Becks. I don't know if it's going to work out between him and me.”
She gasped. ”Don't say that! You spent all summer searching for him and you found him!”
”And then I found out he was pulling the strings, trying to manipulate me,” I said. ”Although he did just send me this e-mail apologizing.” Practically groveling. ”He called me the 'love of his life.' ”
”Oh my G.o.d.”
”I know. But you know what? An e-mail and saying it face-to-face are different.”
”Saying I love you?”
”Saying I'm sorry.”
”Ah, gotcha.”
”So he's coming here and I'm giving him a chance to make up with me.”
”What if he doesn't?” Becky asked, clearly alarmed by the thought.
Before I could answer, I heard raised voices coming from across the hall. Jill and Mom were having some kind of argument. ”I've got to go, Becks. I'll call you once I know when I'm coming back.”
I opened my door a crack and listened. It sounded like they were arguing about the missing jewelry.
”I told you some of it was missing!” Jill said. ”It was the first thing I noticed after the silver! Phil, the guy conning you, must have taken it!”
”Well, why wouldn't he have taken all of it, then?” my mother said with a huff. ”Why just these pieces? Are you sure you or Karina didn't take the pieces for yourself?”
At that point I couldn't stay out of it anymore. I stepped into the hallway. ”Honestly, Mother! Jill and I don't even wear jewelry! Why would one of us have taken it?”
”That's exactly what I mean!” Mom was sitting on the bed, a small silk jewelry bag in her hands. ”Neither of you appreciates the sentimental value of a gift a man gives you.”
”That's not true at all,” I said. ”First of all, for a gift to have sentimental value, it doesn't have to come from a man in particular. Secondly, my generation demands honesty instead of jewelry from our partners. That's way more valuable to me.”
Mom sat up very straight, looking at me. ”Well,” she said.
I braced myself for a fight, but that was all she said. I suppose that was her way of conceding, or at least ending the argument.
And just in time, too. My phone chimed with a text from Stefan. He and James had arrived at a hotel a few miles away.
Four.
Love to Be Loved Jill made a dinner of mostly comfort foods and then Mom went to take what she called a nap, but we suspected she might be down for the count. Thinking about James and the imminent conversation with him had put b.u.t.terflies in my stomach and I could only nibble some macaroni and cheese. After Mom was settled, while we were cleaning up, I told Jill he had arrived.
”So the security expert and his boss are in town.” I opened the dishwasher and started putting gla.s.ses in.
”Aha. And the boss? That's your boyfriend, right?”
Boyfriend sounded wrong, but I didn't quibble. ”The one I'm mad at, yes.”
She paused in wiping down the stove to look at me. ”You sound nervous.”
”Well, I kind of am. I might be about to have the epic breakup fight of my life.”
”But you might not.”
”I did say I'd give him a chance to make it up to me.”
”And you don't think he will?”
”I don't know if he can.”
Jill took the gla.s.s out of my hand and put it in the dishwasher herself. ”You're about to find out, though.”
”I guess I am.”
”Go meet him. It's not even seven yet.”
I dithered a moment more.
”You can take the rental,” Jill prodded. ”The keys are on the hook by the door.”
”Better sooner than later,” I said resignedly. ”I'll go find out if he's free.”
Of course he was. My text to Stefan was answered within seconds with the hotel address and room number.
I got my purse and the keys. ”I'll try not to stay out too late,” I told Jill. ”I'll keep my phone on, so if anything happens or you need the car, call me.”
”I will. But, hey, KayKay,” Jill said as I opened the door to leave. ”One of the ways you know you found the right one is not that you don't argue. It's that after you argue, things get better instead of worse.”
”I'll keep that in mind.”
While I drove, it was nice feeling like there was someone on my side. For the longest time, no one had known about James except Becky. It was as if he was someone I'd made up.
But he was real. He was here. My mother even wanted to meet him. It struck me then that he was even willing to meet her.
James was ready to take off the mask I'd been trying to pry off him all this time. Was I really going to tell him, Never mind. Go back to England. Go back to your cave of anonymity. I'm done with you?
Only if he kept up the bulls.h.i.+t. I made a resolution. If he tried to dom me into listening, if he held back anything, if he demurred or guarded himself, I was done.
When I arrived in the lobby of the hotel, there wasn't anyone at the front desk, so I breezed past to the elevator, checking the room number Stefan had given me.
The room was all the way at the end of the hall, and I wondered if that made it special, or larger.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw there was an envelope on the door. I tore it open, thinking if this turned out to be some cheesy ”strip and kneel” set of instructions, I was going to cry, rip it to shreds, and leave.