Page 122 of The Unfinished Line

There it was, the subtle twinge of condescension—mixed with a dash of jealousy for flavor.

“I’m still in the UK, actually.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t known. Which meant she must not have gotten anything out of Carter. I owed him big time. “Are you still filming?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t a total lie. It was the same thing I’d told my parents. The bulk of the second film’s principal photography would begin in late winter, but Ihadspent two weeks in Germany shootinglast month, so technically, filming had begun. I was just on a very long holiday break.

And it was none of her business.

“Dinner won’t be the same without you tonight, you know?” Her voice carried a wistfulness to it, a sincerity uncommon of her. “I miss you, Kam.”

It was odd. Despite the careless way she’d treated me throughout our friendship, the reality was, I missed her, too. Dani wasn’t like any of my other friends. For everything that she was—her vanity, her hubris, her selfishness—she was still the person who knew me best. The details of my life may not have ever bore importance to her, but she was the one person who knew me behind my every facade.

And now, aside from only a handful of people—namely Dillon, Sophie and, oddly, Elliott—it felt like the rest of the world viewed me through a veneer. I was the face on the cover ofGlamour Magazine, the smiling actress interviewed inThe Hollywood Reporter, the girl from the movie poster—radiant, perfect, incorporeal.

I was no longer Kam, who’d wet her pants in the sandbox in preschool, and glued her hands to the fishtank in Ms. Coombe’s third-grade class. I wasn’t the girl who got her braces stuck to Cody Harvey’s jacket zipper in PE as a freshman, or the klutz who broke a stem off her stilettos during the first dance of prom.

Only Dani knew that Kam. And it was a Kam I didn’t want forgotten. A person I didn’t want lost. And it was so easy to get lost in this world—to forget who you were.

“I’m back in LA at the end of January. Maybe we could get together?”

“Think you could squeeze me in?” She laughed to soften the tone. “Maybe a girls’ weekend at SenSpa? For old times’ sake?”

“I’d love it.” It didn’t dawn on me right then that my carefree days at our favorite spa were over.

We chatted a while longer, reminiscing on past Christmas Eves, and then Dani was summoned by her mother and we closed the conversation with the promise to talk again soon.

Slipping into a pair of Dillon’s slides, I tugged my bedhead into a bun and wandered downstairs. Pots and pans were clanging in the kitchen.

I peeked around the threshold. “Good morning.”

Jacqueline poked her head out of the pantry. “Oh, Kameryn.” She still wouldn’t call me Kam, and I continued to struggle to call her anything other thanMrs. Sinclair. But despite the formalities, she’d been a generous host and made it clear I was welcome under her rooftop.

“I assumed you were off with Dillon.”

“She thought I might want to sleep in this morning.”

The arch of her eyebrows assured me I hadn’t done an admirable job disguising my disappointment. But if Jacqueline knew about the snowballing drama of yesterday’s photo, she didn’t let on.

“I see,” she said instead, once again disappearing into her pantry.

I knew she blamed herself for Dillon’s ardent recommitment to her training. Yesterday afternoon I’d heard her say as much to Seren. They hadn’t realized I was in the kitchen, and Jacqueline had gone on, lamenting a comment she’d made about Dillon’s focus.

Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, I tiptoed with my glass of water into the hallway and up half a dozen stairs, before turning around and making a production of tromping down each step to announce my presence. The conversation in the lounge abruptly turned to plans for dinner, and what vegetables should be prepared.

Part of me had wanted to find a way to casually mention the article I’d seen pulled up on Dillon’s laptop a few daysearlier, the headline announcing Elyna Laurent’s bold return to competition. She’d come up with an offseason win in Mexico City—a race Dillon had won the previous year.

It was that, I felt certain, that drove her from her bed before dawn each morning and into the ice-cold water of the bay. That which sent her on hours-long runs and cycles through the hills. Entire half-days spent at the aquatic center in the pool. But I left it alone.

Reappearing from the pantry, Jacqueline handed me four boxes of sugar. “Hold these, will you?” she said, before rifling through her fridge. She returned with several sticks of butter. “Tonight is Noson Gyflaith—toffee evening.”

Consulting a spiral index of cards, she pursed her lips, clearly flustered. “This was always Bedwyr’s thing. I don’t know why, after all these years, I keep trying to hang onto his traditions.” Not looking for an answer, she plucked a brass pan from the overhead rack and turned on a burner. “Water first? Or butter? I can never remember.” The recipe card was given a second glance, to which she only shook her head. “I’ve lived in Wales longer than I ever lived in England, and I still can’t read the bloody language.” Tossing the butter into the heating pan, she turned to me. “I would be lying, Kameryn, if I said you were what I’d hoped for for Dillon.”

The unheralded switch from toffee-making to matchmaking jarred me, and I lost my grip on the box I was opening, spilling the contents across the floor.

“Oh God, I’m sorry.” Embarrassed, I dropped to my knees, trying to recover the remainder of unspoiled sugar, along with the remnants of my bruised pride. So much for my misconception of her affability.

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