Page 73 of Sunrise Arrows

“But—”

“We’ll have dinner and then I’ll read to you until you fall asleep.”

“It’s date night though.”

“You’re exhausted, Tinsley. You need to sleep.”

She’s still laying across the mattress, not even under the blankets, and her eyes are starting to droop.

“I miss you,” she mumbles.

“I miss you too.”

“How much longer?”

“56 days, or 32 shows, depending how you want to count.”

“So not even halfway.”

I turn onto my side in our bed so I’m laying as if I'm actually facing her and confirm, “Afraid not, baby.”

“Archer?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you read to me?”

Her eyes aren’t even open now and I smile, “Sure, Shortcake.”

She’s asleep before I’ve even recalled the first full page of the book.

I stay on the phone watching her until her lips part and her breathing turns deep and even. She’ll be out until morning. I don’t end the call though. Instead, I prop my phone on the pillows on her side of the bed and open my laptop, going over the financial records she asked me to look at again.

She hadn’t given me any details when she asked me if I’d be willing to look into some records for her. All Tinsley had said was she had some suspicions but couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was reading. Naturally, when I saw the gradual, inexplicable drain of money from the accounts, I immediately called her, not caring that she was in Portugal and it was the middle of the night there. Three million dollars may be a drop in the bucket for her in the grand scheme of things, but this was only one block of accounts. Who knew if and how much more was being siphoned off from her others.

It wasn’t her account though. And while that brought me some relief, it made it worse because that meant it was either Briar—unlikely because she and Tinsley share an accountant, not that it’s stopped me from basically demanding that they let me audit their finances to verify no one was stealing from them too—or Skylar, whose parents managed everything, including the trust that the money she made from her show was supposed to be going into. A trust Tinsley told me she can’t even access a statement to without their consent until her twenty-fifth birthday, which is still four years away.

Looking at how much she’s already lost, I close my laptop, not wanting to think about how little, if anything, remains in the trust. For all intents and purposes, minus the allowance she gets twice a month, Skylar’s completely broke.

“Tinsely?” Briar knocks before entering the room.

I pick my phone back up and softly call out, “Shh.”

She’s carrying the vase of flowers I sent when she comes into view. Spotting Tinsley asleep on the bed, she slaps a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh.

“She’s gonna be so mad in the morning,” she snorts, setting the vase on the nightstand. Briar picks up Tinsley’s phone and takes a spot on the bed, asking, “How bad is it?”

“Bad. I’ll send what I found this afternoon so an actual forensic accountant can verify everything, but Skylar’s parents have completely screwed her.”

“And I thought my dad couldn’t be dethroned from the lifetime achievement award for Biggest Asshole.” A tell of confusion must have crossed my face because she asks, “You don’t know?” When I shake my head, she shrugs and with a nonchalance no one would believe, explains, “Davenport was my mom’s name. She was a maid in my father’s house when he took an interest in her. She was young and naïve, and he was this huge movie star showering her with attention and false promises to leave his wife. When she got pregnant with me, he gave her 150,000 dollars to quit and get an abortion. Obviously she didn’t do the second part. I didn’t know who my dad was until my mom went to hospice when I was fifteen.”

“Shit, Briar, I’m so sorry.”

“I wish that was the worst of it. Turns out caring for my mom and burying her by myself was the easy part. The hard part came when CPS asked if I had any living family, and I stupidly gave them my dad’s name.

“The existence of his secret love child was leaked to the media within hours of my mom’s passing. With all the bad press breathing down his neck, he and his wife had no choice but to take me in so they could save face.

“He should have won an Oscar for how well he portrayed the story of having no idea my mom was pregnant when she quit.”

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