Page 35 of Sing For Me

So my solution is mostly to not talk about her.

Luckily, Seamus lets it drop, and we end up shooting the shit about baseball until he’s done sizing up the room.

“All right, Dad’s got a new guy in his casual pool who’s a total keener—I bet he’d be able to get this place set up for you in a couple weeks.”

Relief hits me that I’m going to be able to pull this thing off. I realize I’d been worried. “Thanks, man. I knew you’d come through.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Sam. The guy’s fast as hell.”

“I’ll see you at O’Malley’s tonight, right?” I ask. Cass insisted all of us siblings meet up at the local pub to celebrate the first night of the show filming.

“Yeah, Chelsea’s making me.” Seamus doesn’t like going to O’Malley’s, not just because the full name of the place isSeamus O’Malley’s, but because he’s not exactly Mr. Sociable. I was always the talker in our friendship. He preferred beers down at the batting cage—at least until he and Chelsea got together.

But I’m glad he’s going now. He’ll be a good deflection from any questions my sisters might hit me with about Reese. Especially because she won’t be there. I can’t subject her to a full Kelly-sibling grilling when our fake relationship is still on its wobbly newborn legs.

“Good. It’ll be great. I’m only going because I’m pretty sure Cass is going to be eating a good ol’ crow pie, thanking me for bringing the show to Rolling Hills.”

“All right, that’ll be worth going for,” Seamus laughs.

A few hours later I’m two beers deep at O’Malley’s, feeling like a million bucks. Sam & Dave blasts from the speakers—they actually have a jukebox here still, and I crammed it full of quarters when I last went to the bathroom, so it’s still playing my playlist.

My twin sister did indeed eat crow, telling me she was wrong about dismissing the show at first. “I’m already hearing buzz from travel magazines,” she says after she makes an actual speech thanking me for bringing eyes to our family hotel.

“I take groveling in the form of beer,” I say, lacing my fingers behind my head.

“You’ve made him insufferable,” Chelsea complains.

“Agreed,” Jude says. I whip a coaster at my brother, but of course the damn reflexes on that guy means he catches it without even blinking. Stupid professional athlete. Jude and I don’t always get along, but even he can’t put me in a bad mood tonight. Having Cass suck it up and apologize to me is just too sweet. The only thing that would make it sweeter, I realize, is having Reese here.

And maybe my brother Griffin—but he’s in and out of town so much no one ever knows where he’s going to be at any given time. He was against the show in the beginning but came around. His support looks like begrudging neutrality.

I glance down at my phone on the table, willing Reese to text me. I asked her how it went today—how she felt it went—and all she wrote back was “good.” Which was annoying, but I knew I’d probably just caught her at a busy time.

Nora, sitting next to Jude, turns her video camera off. Jude reassured us it’s just a hobby of hers and she doesn’t actually use the footage for anything. It used to unnerve me how she’d film everything, but by now I’m used to it. I’m even a little grateful, seeing as I don’t feel too nervous about the prospect of the cameras on the show pointing at me every now and then.

But Nora’s expression is tight, her eyes over my shoulder, and I’m compelled to turn back to see why.

When I do, my stomach drops. It’s my ex-wife, wearing a black cocktail dress and high-heeled ankle boots, her hair swinging in a ponytail sleeker than the loose one she was wearing this morning on set.

I want to look away before she sees me, but it’s too late. Her eyes lock onto mine, just as Neil comes in through the door behind her.

He waves exuberantly.

I groan, lifting a hand up as they make their way directly over to the booth. Seamus squirms. “Oh shit, it’s happening,” he whispers to Chelsea, clearly star-struck by the host of his favorite show.

We do our introductions. Though most of my siblings met the two of them on one of our pre-production video calls, Jude wasn’t there. He also, I realize, has never met Kelly in person. The whole time we were married, he was overseas. When he wasn’t playing tennis, he was partying. We didn’t really see him for most of his twenties, truth be told.

“Hey!” Jude says now, grinning and shaking Neil’s hand exuberantly.

When he does the same with Kelly, something washes over his face I can’t place. The old me might have been jealous—Jude seems to make every woman he meets melt. But it must be nothing, because soon he’s grinning again. “You guys want to join us?”

I blanch.You fucking idiot.

Nora looks right at me, eyes wide.

But I don’t have time to make anything up to discourage them from sitting, because of course Neil has grabbed a couple of chairs from a table nearby.

My heart picks up speed. I need to get the hell out of here.

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