Page 110 of One Last Shot

“It’s just, I have contacts here. I can much more easily move my business here than I can start over in LA. And whether the show gets picked up for a second season or not ...” She pauses, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then says, “I think I’d rather be here with you and Stella, even if it means I can’t do the show.”

My stomach flips over. “You’d walk away from the show?” I’m stunned. I didn’t expect this at all. I know how much the message of that show means to her, how privileged she feels to get to tell these women’s stories.

“There’s an interview that will air later this season, I think it’s episode thirteen. In it, a super famous actress said something to me that just ... resonated. She told me: ‘If you’re someone who is stuck working toward goals some previous version of you wanted, when what you now want is actually something else, then you’re not being true to yourself.’ I’ve heard those words over and over in my head since she said them, and it’s like she knew exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. This show, the platform it gives me, itissomething I wanted. But what I want now is you. You and Stella. And I think we can make that happen more easily here in New York than anywhere else.”

I drop her feet and stand, spreading her legs in her seat so I can get as close to her as possible. Her arms come around my waist, pulling me to her. I tip my head down and our foreheads rest against each other.

“Thank God,” I say. “For a few minutes there, I thought maybe we were becoming our parents.”

I feel her pull back with a sharp inhale of her breath. “What do you mean by that?”

Shit.I should have thought more about those words. I should have planned out how I would tell her.

“Sasha,” she says when I don’t respond instantly. “What do you mean, you thought maybe we were becoming our parents?”

I take a deep breath. “I’ve been feeling like I should talk to you about something, but also feeling like nothing good can come of talking about this part of our past.”

She sits back in her chair, leaning against the seat back. She’s officially as far away as she can get without getting up and walking away, which I don’t take as a good sign.

“If there’s something you’re keeping from me, I need to know about it right fucking now.” The hard edge in her voice matches the icy glint in her eyes. “Don’t you dare ask me to make a life-altering choice about our relationship if you’re hiding something big.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” I say and hold my hands up in what I hope is a gesture of peace. “But I do know things about our parents, and things about our past, that I wish I didn’t.”

“Go on,” she says, her voice deadly low.

“There was something happening between my father and your mother. I’m not sure how far it ever went, but my father said she wrecked him, always giving little pieces of herself but never willing to completely give herself over.”

“Did they date before she met my father? In college or something?”

“I don’t know. I know they knew each other in college, so maybe? But I’m talking about when we were older.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “How much older?”

I tell her about the day I stayed home from school, and what I overheard before her mother left to pick Viktor up.

“So they both died because she was rushing home to prevent your father from talking to mine?” Her voice is ice.

“I think it’s likely that’s why she was driving so fast, yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me back then?”

“I didn’t know for sure if there was any truth to my father’s accusations. And I didn’t want you or your father to think your mom had been cheating if it weren’t true.”

“But it was true?”

“I think there wassomethinggoing on between them. I’m not sure how far it went.”

“When did you figure it out?”

I reach out to pull her hand into mine but she pulls away, folding her hands in her lap so tightly her knuckles are white.

“I know this is hard to hear, which is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“When did you figure it out, Sasha?”

“My father confirmed it the night we signed the marriage license.”

“But you didn’t know it was a marriage license the night we signed that paperwork,right?” she clarifies, like she’s trying to trap me in a today lie instead of a years-old lie.

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