Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Sighing, I quickly texted back, Pamela is taking me to a client’s house tomorrow, sorry. Rain check? Xx.
“That was a big sigh,” Rafe commented as he curled a hand around my foot and switched out of one app and into another on his TV.
We were sharing blissful alone time. No family, no friends, no work. Just him and me, hanging out on his couch on a Sunday, doing nothing. It was awesome.
You know, except for the fact that we should have been at his parents’ house for dinner. Rafe had successfully distracted me from bringing up the subject that morning with multiple orgasms, and who was I to argue with that? Yet now the day was stretching on. We’d had lunch, we’d talked about our weeks, and still the topic was avoided.
Enough was enough. I prodded his hip with my big toe. “Have you talked to your brother yet?”
His hand tightened around my ankle. “Nope.” He brushed his thumb over my sole and I yanked my foot back at the tickle. Rafe shot me a boyish grin before settling on a showing of Planet Earth II.
“Avoider,” I muttered.
His amusement died. “I have nothing to say to him until he apologizes to you. If he apologizes to you, I will apologize for hitting him.”
I’d tried to feel out Pippa and Gigi about it, but Pippa, like her brother-in-law, avoided the subject, and Gigi just didn’t have a clue. She did, however, note her full support of Rafe for smacking Hugo in the nose for the awful things he’d said about me. Gigi’s voice had trembled when she said that, and I understood in that moment that she cared about me too, and Hugo had not only hurt me and Rafe, he’d hurt her.
It was humbling. And unsettling. Just another reason I was determined to get the Whitmans back together.
Before I could push Rafe a little more about Hugo, my phone rang. I glanced down, thinking it would be Kendall, and instead froze at the sight of the name blinking across my screen.
Dawn
What the ever-loving . . . I answered, feeling anxious. “Dawn?”
Rafe’s attention whipped from the screen to me.
My mom, I mouthed just as she hissed out, “Did you know about this?”
Stunned at her tone, I jerked my chin in surprise. “Dawn? What?”
“Did. You. Know. About. This?” she repeated like I was stupid.
Irritated that after months of not hearing a word from her, this was the attitude she treated me to, I snapped, “Well, it would be great if you told me what ‘this’ is!”
Rafe sat up straight, lips pressed together in a grim line.
“I need your address,” Dawn demanded instead.
“My address? What is going on?”
“What is going on is that I came home from my girls’ trip to find myself booted out of my own home. That’s what’s going on!”
My heart raced. “What? Why?”
“So you know nothing about this nurse Arlo is shacking up with?”
Maggie? No-nonsense Maggie? “What?”
“You don’t know.” Dawn sighed heavily. “Arlo hired a nurse to help him out and she helped him out all right. Right out of his mind and into his bed. Now you know I don’t care about Arlo having his flings. I’d be a hypocrite if I did. But this isn’t a fling. He ended it with me. I’m out. She’s in.” Her voice cracked. “After decades together, the man dumped me. Says they’re in love.” A sob echoed down the line and although I felt a pang of sympathy for her, I couldn’t forget that she’d abandoned me, abandoned Arlo.
So the thought foremost in my mind was Way to go, Arlo. Despite his crappy parenting skills, I was glad he’d found someone who cared about him back. It was typical of him to fall in love in just a few short weeks, but as long as he was happy, who was I to judge? It wasn’t like I didn’t know the feeling.
“Did you hear me, Star? I need a place to stay until I can figure out what to do with myself and my studio. The bastard has my studio. You got a couch you can sleep on, don’t you? It’s just I need the bed. Bad back, you know.”
Was she serious?
“Are you there? Look, Star, I don’t have time to dillydally. I’m on a bus right now, heading your way.”
“You’re on a bus right now heading my way because you need somewhere to stay because Arlo dumped you for his nurse?” I repeated, for Rafe’s sake.
Rafe’s eyes widened.
“Is this a bad line or something or are you just tormenting me? I need your address.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No.” I got up off the couch, my anger rushing out of me in a flood. “I haven’t heard from you in months. My calls and texts have gone unanswered and for all I knew, you could have been dead. Arlo had heart surgery and you abandoned him, but what’s new, since you abandoned me as soon as you popped me out. If Arlo is happy with someone who isn’t a selfish asshole who tries to mask her selfishness beneath a facade of bohemian rebellion, then good for him. Go live your life free of us, Dawn. It’s what you’ve always wanted, anyway. I’m done with you too.” I hung up and spun around to stare at Rafe.