Page 66 of In This Together

She and Hunter never used anything, but they had a combined age of nearly a hundred; surely not.

She and Tommy had gotten carried away on more than one occasion, but how likely was once or twice?

‘Let’s be rational here, Andi. You don’t know anything. Get on with your day and take a test later. You’ll see,’ she told herself.

She pulled back onto the road and continued her drive to Jay’s rehab facility. She thought about what her father had said to her when they last discussed Sofia.

I’ve told her I’ll come back to the studio full time. She’s tied to Jay morally and in business. It’s a nasty combination. The hardest thing as a father is to accept that your baby girls need to do things on their own sometimes, work things out for themselves. She knows that when she’s ready, I’m here. There’s not much more I can do without pushing her away. You should know that as well as anyone.

Sofia had always been Andrea’s responsibility and whether Sofia ever understood how much Andrea loved her or not, Andrea would always look out for the best interests of her sister.

Thatwas the important thing today.Thatwas her sole focus.

* * *

It was half an hour later, after she had gotten through the security check-in – a thousand interrogating questions about who she was and why she was visiting the client – that Andrea stood on the edge of the lawn to Jay’s clinic. With the whitewash building – that looked more like a cosy retreat than a substance abuse rehabilitation centre – behind her, she looked out to sea. A light breeze whipped up her hair and chilled her skin where she had gotten hot in the car from the sun beaming through the windows, despite the air conditioning.

She was pleased she’d decided to wear flat shoes as the lawn mixed with sand made for a soft surface. Beyond the lawn, the grass gave way to dunes that tumbled down the short bank to the water, which gently lolled back and forth, making short white waves.

She had known friends with homes in the Hamptons over her years working in the music industry. She’d had a fling or two that wound up in dirty weekends locked in the summer homes of artists and executives, who rarely had time to enjoy them.

One such executive she had been sleeping with for more than half of the past year. As she had that thought, she realised her hand had come to rest on her lower abdomen, as if confirming what she wasn’t ready to have confirmed.

‘I’m not sure you’re theverylast person I expected to see but you’re certainly down there on the list.’

Remembering that she was here on… business, of sorts, Andrea turned to face Jay. She analysed him like a doctor looking for disease. Clean sneakers. Jogging bottoms. A pressedColdplaymerchandise T-shirt. The way his hair had grown shaggy and too long but looked, at least, clean. She clocked his bare fingers and noted that the gold band that usually decorated the fourth finger of his left hand was not in place. Then she assessed his eyes, finding them to be white – as clear as she’d ever seen them.

‘Have you come to gloat?’ he asked sourly.

‘No,’ she replied honestly.

He walked toward one of numerous white Parisien-esque tables on the lawn. Andrea followed and a member of staff automatically brought them each a glass, filling them with cucumber-infused water as they sat silently.

How should she start this?

‘You look better,’ she said. ‘Good.’

His bemused look showed from behind his glass as he drank.

‘I know we don’t see eye-to-eye, Jay.’

He scoffed and said, ‘Understatement,’ just loud enough for her to hear his petulant tone.

‘Like I said. But I am glad that you’re finally getting the help you need.’

He scratched his head, his knuckles white with strain as he clearly battled his annoyance or frustration, perhaps both.

‘There’s clearly nothing wrong with Sofia, otherwise you would have opened with that or maybe not even come at all. Fuck knows. Whatever you need to say couldn’t wait another fifteen days until I get out of here. So how about you say what you came to say and be on your way?’

She nodded. There weren’t many things she could respect about Jay. There were many things she could hate, like the way he’d manipulated his way into Sanfia Records, which, she suspected, had been a major factor behind him seeking out Sofia in the first place. Like the way he tried to change Sanfia Records, wanting to introduce dance music and drum and bass, basically using an established label for his own preferences, rather than having the balls to set something up for himself. Or the way he spoke down to Sofia and demeaned her without her even realising it. The way he had changed and continued to change her bright, quirky and happy younger sister into someone plain and unhappy. But if there was anything about Jay she could respect, he, like her, also liked to cut to the chase.

She slowly sipped her water, knowing that she could be the bigger person but unable to let Jay have control of the situation.

‘You’re not wearing your wedding ring,’ she said, looking out to the ocean.

She saw from the corner of her eye as he wrapped his right hand over his left. ‘That make you happy? You’d love it, wouldn’t you? If this was it for Sofia and me?’

‘I want what I’ve always wanted for my sister – what’s best for her.’

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