Page 110 of Push

A tiny smirk danced on her lips. “Only one hundred?”

“Overachiever.” I exaggerated an eye roll. “How about infinity, then?”

“Infinity works.” The big smile she beamed up at me faded. “Thanks for, you know…not being weird about…” She bit down on her lip.

“Gwen, look at me.” Her eyes lifted, wary, and I reassured her with a soft stroke of her cheek. “There’s nothing weird about what happened, okay? No one—not even you—can shoulder everyone’s shit all the time.” I booped her nose. “Push the blame to me. My job is to support you, and I dropped that ball a long time ago.”

She disagreed with a soft shake of her head. “You can’t take all the blame. Maybe about Kayleigh, but not about other things. We could’ve avoided a lot of problems if we’d talked. I’m just as guilty of bottling stuff up as you are.”

“I can’t argue when you hit me with those facts, Lawyer Mama.”

“No, you can’t, Handsome Goofball.”

“Ouch. More facts,” I grinned. “Especially thehandsomepart.” The waggle of my eyebrows only sharpened her glare. I laughed. “Need some more not-weird crying time?”

She shook her head.

“In that case,” I said, “I should probably rescue the highchair from Noah and his yogurt. Want me to make you a coffee first? Run you a bath?”

Gwen pushed against my chest to force more distance between us. “Iwantto go to the police.”

I took a deep breath to slow down my mouth before I said something dumb. “I’m hearing you loud and clear, doll.” I fought even harder to keep my tone neutral. This was progress. The last thing we needed was to charge off to our separate corners without talking again. “Tell me if I’m on the right track, okay? I didn’t deal with Kayleigh properly, and now it’s out of control. You’re worried. You want it fixed, and you want to be there with me to make sure it’s done right.”

Her nod was firm. “Exactly.”

“Let’s figure out a game plan, then.”

Her eyes narrowed. “We go to the police. Done.That’sthe plan.”

Those words were music to my ears. I was like Gwen—a doer. But I forced myself to ignore every muscle screaming at me to go, go, go!

“Hear me out?” I asked cautiously.

Her eyebrow rose, but she waited.

“We’ve got two options,” I said. “One. We go to the cops today. Noah’s fever is down, but I don’t want to drag him to the station until all hours of the night. He needs cuddles and sleep.” I glanced at him, groaning when he flipped the yogurt bowl ontohis head. “And probably a bath.” I laughed. “Now, I’m more than willing to call in favors to get someone to look after him for a couple of hours. Marnie’s been dropping an awful lot of hints about me repainting her studio.” I grinned. “I can be bribed.”

“What’s your second option?” Gwen hedged.

“We go tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!”

“I know it’s your day in the office—”

She snorted. “I’m not at my brother’s beck and call. He’ll have to deal with me being late. I want this sorted.Yesterday. So, explain how stuffing around for another day helps the situation.”

“Don’t you always say building a good case comes down to the prep work? I won’t be sitting around on my ass today, twiddling my thumbs. I’ll be smart about this and think things through. I want to understand exactly what we’re dealing with.”

“By…?”

“Well, first… I need to eliminate some of the worries about Kayleigh. I’m going to take your car out to grab a new phone. I know shit all about tech, but after that, I’m going on a deep dive of internet research to see if I can figure out if she put a tracker on my car—”

“That could be evidence—”

“Yeah. I won’t touch anything. I want to know if one’s there. I’ll also get the locksmith to come out in case Kayleigh’s messed with my keys or something. I’ll change all my passwords. Once all that’s done, I’m going to put on your sexy pink gloves, go through all the crap she left on the car, read it, and then pack it up so it’s safe. Not the, uh, photos, though.” I resisted the urge to retch—just barely. “I wasn’t kidding about not wanting any images of her in my brain. But I’ll write down everything I remember—dates, places, what she said—and get the chain of events clear in my head.”

The heavy line pinched between Gwen’s eyes disappeared. “You’ve thought about this.”

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