Page 9 of Hush Money
Her eyes go wide like saucers, and she nods.
“Tomorrow,” she whispers.
EVIE
It shouldn’t feel this good.
With everything that’s going on in my life right now—most of which has transpired in the last hour—the last thing I should be doing is curling up against my on-again-off-again ex-best friend. But here I am.
And it feelsgood.
He’s warm. He’s sturdy. And right now, he’s just quiet. We’re just sitting in silence on this big brown couch that feels like it’s fresh off the showroom floor, and I wonder how many times someone has sat on it. There are no photos on the walls, no plants, no nothing that insinuates signs of life. Some random paintings hang on the walls but nothing that feels like Keaton.
But I decide not to ask tonight.
I decide to just let this go on as long as it can.
I curl up tighter against him as he flicks through the channels. Then I see him scroll back up toThree’s Company, and I turn my chin up to him.
“No way,” I say with a shy smile. He smirks.
“It’s always on this time of night,” he says.
“It is?” I ask, surprised that he knows this.
“Yep,” he says. “I watch it almost every night.”
“You do?” I ask. He smiles.
“Yeah. It reminds me of my best friend.”
I swallow as I stare up at him.
His best friend.
I sit up and turn toward him, crossing my legs underneath me and facing him.
“What made you come tonight?” I ask him.
“What do you mean? You sent me your location.”
“I know,” I say. “But I…” my voice trails off. He turns to me and puts his hand on top of
mine.
“Eve, if I sent you my location, what would you have done?”
I think for a moment. I would be anxious. I would overthink it a million times. But I know what I would do.
“I would come,” I say. He nods.
“Exactly,” he says.
“But even after…” my voice trails off again. I’m not really sure what I need him to say. I just want to know why, after the way we left everything, he still came. He brought me back here. He’s still sitting with me now.
“Even after,” he says. His eyes drop down to our now intertwined fingers for a moment. “Eve, I told you years ago that you will always have me.Always.And I meant it. Even when you had him, you had me.Haveme.”
I force myself to look up at him, and I can feel the tears burning in the backs of my eyes. What could I have done to deserve those words?
