Page 59 of My Super Sexy Spy
LEIGH:Back at you, fake internet friend.
* * *
Liam
ME:Back at you, fake internet friend.
I put my phone down and figured that did it. She trusted Leigh to keep things real with her. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me. Now, when Gino’s time came, she would realize she had to go home and get on with her life. That she and I…well, we couldn’t be a thing. I simply wasn’t capable of it.
As for me, I guess the only thing that made sense was getting my job back. And the only way to do that would be to get her to turn over the USB to me. Which would probably make her conclude that everything I’d done for both her and Gino had all been leading to one thing.
She would feel she’d been played. Again. That nothing I had done or said had been real. Again.
Not even the tea.
“Fuck,” I whispered to an empty room.
I picked up the phone and thought of a hundred things I could write to possibly undo what I’d done, but the absurdity of it, of using the fake relationship I’d cultivated with Beth through Leigh, to undo ourbreakupwas too much.
If I was going to change or fix anything between Beth and I, it had to be through me.
Like me telling her I was Leigh the whole time.
I groaned and fell back on the bed. Then I checked to make sure the alarm was set for three hours when I would need to give Gino another hit of the morphine. Then I let myself sleep.
Only when the alarm went off and I walked into his bedroom, I knew he was already gone. There was a stillness about death that didn’t look at all like sleeping. It was a stillness I was too familiar with in my line of work.
Beth had her sign from the universe.
* * *
A Cemetery in Paris
Beth
Liam had woken me up with the news. He’d woken me because the undertakers were on their way to remove the body from the home and he hadn’t wanted me to be startled.
I didn’t look at Gino under the sheet Liam had pulled over him. I didn’t watch as they took his body away. I’d tried not to feel, but that seemed impossible.
Almost as much as it did now, staring down at his tiny grave.
He’d been cremated as per his request and placed here in this tiny plot in Paris that he’d chosen as his final resting place. You could see the Eiffel Tower from here, so it was a good spot. Liam had taken care of everything, and now, all that was left were my goodbyes.
I stared down at the unremarkable stone placard which held simply his name, birth and death dates and the one thing I insisted Liam add.
Nobel Prize Winner.
Because people should at least know that. That he’d been important in life.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for us. I’m sorry you couldn’t be a real dad and maybe I’m sad I couldn’t be your real daughter. Maybe I would have stopped you from doing whatever the thing was that gave you cancer in the first place.” I kicked the dirt at my toes, feeling both foolish and sad. For so many things. “Anyway, thank you for what you did do for me and I hope…well, I hope I’m doing the right thing by you. I think you deserve whatever recognition you’re going to get for this.”
I walked away and went to stand next to Liam. He was wearing a dark suit and had managed to find me an appropriate black dress for the occasion. It was crazy how much he’d handled for me this past week.
Clothes that fit were miraculously in a dresser for me. Shoes that fit were laid out in a closet. Food was always in the refrigerator, and Gino hadn’t suffered a moment of pain because of the medicine Liam made sure Gino had.
He’d taken care of the arrangements, the cremation, the burial, so that not a single burden fell on me.
Down to my somber black dress and low heels. Easier for walking through a cemetery.
