Page 64 of Gravity of Love
“Before he knew about the video, he said ‘I don’t know what you heard,’ I said no one said anything, then he said I don’t know what youthinkyou saw, so Ishowedhim the video.”
“And…” Zee prompted.
Frankie was building this up purpose. Zee loved a dramatic reveal. “He said, and I quote, ‘It’s amazing what they can do with AI,’ and, ‘Emmanuelle’s husband is bitter.’”
When the line went silent, Frankie glanced at the phone to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected. She put it back to her ear just as her friend said, “I mean, I don’t want to be insensitive to you, and you know I want to kill him, but that’s?—”
“It’s impressive, right?” she finished his thought. “Yeah. I thought the same thing.”
Zee sighed audibly with relief. “Okay, good.”
“But when I told him it was on the cloud, all the fight drained out of him.” She glanced back over her shoulder and watched as he spoke on the phone. She knew that tense jaw and brow furrow, it was his litigation face. It was the look he got when he was devising a strategy to go into court.
“What?” Zee asked. “Where did you just go?”
“I, um, before I came out here, I told him I knew about the other clients he slept with and that he rated them with fleshlights?—”
“Which can I just say, is so…I don’t know, that doesn’t even sound like him.” Zee put in his two cents. “I mean, he’s a piece of shit for cheating on you, but it was withEmmanuelle. Not saying that’s okay, but she’s…Emmanuelle. But sleeping with random clients and then the fleshlights—that’s tacky, it’s so low rent for Tristan. He must be having an early midlife crisis.”
“I know and I told him, and he got a look on his face I’ve never seen and I’ve known him basically all his life. It was, I don’t know alarmed. Surprised. I’m not sure. I know he’s a liar,but he really looked like he had no clue what I was talking about. So I forwarded him the information I got from Petra and?—”
“Wait. You got that information fromPetra?”
“Yeah.”
“Petra, who Single White Female’d you because she’s in love with Tristan?”
“Do you think she lied?” Frankie asked.
“I hate to be on Tristan’s side about anything, but, yes, Iabsolutelythink she lied. She probably knew about the Emmanuelle thing and thought it wouldn’t last, because she’sEmmanuelleand he’s, well, Tristan, and she got scared you’d take him back, so she wanted you to think he’d done it a lot of times in the past to put the final nail in the cheater coffin.”
“Oh.” It was strange, but that actually made more sense than if he had been cheating on her all that time and then rating his clients.
Either way, nothing changed as far as whether or not she wanted to be back together with Tristan, but at least she felt like if that wasn’t true, she could still be friends with him. It was strange, but the person she wanted to discuss this with was just downstairs. He was only a few feet away but so far at the same time.
She looked over the balcony at the Liam’s darkened bedroom window. She wished so badly she could crawl through it like she used to when they were kids. If she did, she hoped he wouldn’t sleep on the floor. She missed him.Reallymissed him. Like her body ached, missed him. One week. Just one week. They just had to make it through one week.
19
Liam steppedonto the elevator and pressed three. His last week at Pine Ridge Memorial Hospital was turning out to be dialed up to eleven. The halls hummed with the sort of fevered—pun intended—purpose that came from flu season in the ER, and a half-staffed pediatric department meant that on top of his typical workload he was getting paged every other hour to consult or cover for someone else. He’d thought giving notice—three full months, not that he was counting—would mean a quiet fade-out, maybe even some time to catch his breath, perhaps even shadow his replacement. Instead, it was as if the universe wanted to wring out every last ounce of professional usefulness from him before he left.
Every shift, people stopped him in the halls. Nurses he’d worked with for years, techs he only vaguely recognized, and the custodial staff—all of them wanted a minute to wish him well or, more often, to guilt-trip him for “abandoning” them. The running joke was that he was moving to Hope Falls in hopes of being touched by the Hope Falls Effect, which was a slogan/tourist marketing campaign and an effective—no pun intended—one at that. He’d heard the term about a hundred times overthe past few weeks. There was even merchandise, which he knew because he’d received a t-shirt, hoodie, four mugs, and a gym bag with its definition stitched, printed, or ironed onto it as going away/good luck presents.
Before his estranged brother and father showed up, he might have thought there was something to it. That Hope Falls might have some sort of miracle powers. Now, he was sure it was a slogan to attract off-season vacationers.
All in all, most people at the hospital seemed genuinely sorry to see him go. Sometimes well-wishers, he could tell, were hoping for an explanation, maybe some juicy scandal behind his abrupt career shift, but he gave them nothing. Stoicism was his brand, a nod, maybe a handshake if they initiated it, and the occasional but rare smile. He’d never been a fan of attention. Growing up, he was always more than happy to let Tristan bask in the spotlight of their parents, teachers, and strangers, for that matter.
He was not so happy about letting Tristan bask in the spot of Frankie’s fake fiancé. She’d messaged Liam, letting him know they talked and were in a ‘good place’ now. Tristan swore on everything that he and Emmanuelle were over. She wasn’t sure she believed him, but they’d called a truce. They were going to get along, keep up the ruse of their engagement, and show each other respect so they could walk away friends at the end of the week. It all sounded very mature, but it was still making Liam want to crawl out of his skin.
The past 36 out of 48 hours he’d been on duty, and he wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. He’d only been home to shower, nap, and change clothes before coming right back to the hospital in the early hours of the morning. Besides texting Frankie, he hadn’t directly spoken to or seen anyone currently staying in his home, but their presence was evident. Well, Cora’s presence was. His fridge was stocked, and all of his laundry wasdone. He’d left her a note forbidding her from doing any more work. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like she was on the job while she was a guest in his home. She wrote him a note back saying she enjoyed taking care of him and that she’d missed it. She told him she did the same things for AJ and Niko when she visited them. And if he didn’t believe her, he could ask them when they arrived on Saturday.
Since the wedding was so last minute, the twins were flying in day of. Niko, who was a pitcher for the San Diego Waves, was in Boston facing the Red Sox, his final game was on Friday night. AJ’s work was highly confidential. Liam hadn’t spoken to him in a while, not since he got back from his latest deployment. During the dinner at Sue Ann’s, Cora mentioned that AJ couldn’t fly out early because he had several post-deployment board reviews he had to attend. Liam noted the concern in Cora’s eyes, that, combined with AJ never mentioning anything about review boards before, made him think something may not have gone to plan with his latest deployment. He was looking forward to being able to see him in person. AJ was difficult enough to read when Liam could look him in the eye, trying to interpret the nuances of his tone and expression on FaceTime was nearly impossible.
The doors dinged as the elevator arrived at his floor. Poppy texted him 911 an hour earlier. It wasn’t a real emergency; it was her code for wanting to see him immediately. A second later another message came through that had two emojis. A coffee cup and praying hands translated to him bringing her a coffee. Typically, he didn’t take her dramatic java pleas or summons to see him seriously, especially when he was so busy he hadn’t eaten or sat down in over twelve hours, but he was worried about his baby sister, so he was using this as an excuse to check in on her.
After the doors opened, he exited and rounded the corner to radiology. He found Poppy perched on a stool, blowing a bubble with her gum, swinging one sneakered foot, and scrolling through her phone. She wore striped compression socks and a scrub cap covered in cartoon wombats.
“Did you bring my coffee?” she asked, without looking up from her phone.
