It was invigorating to have this new direction. She couldn’t wait to share it with Will. Surely he’d have some insights as a business owner himself.
An hour before her scheduled lesson with Katie that afternoon, she headed to the grocery store. Since it was an off-day for the team, she planned to make a meal for Will and Katie—and Frank if he came by—after the lesson.
She intended to have a conversation with Will even if she had to wait until Katie went to sleep. She’d been thinking about him constantly over the past couple weeks, trying to move past her hurt feelings after their last conversation so she could reason out why he’d said what he did. Alima guessed he’d been hurt by something Jasmine had said or done, which made him lash out. In revisiting the conversation, she could only reason he’d been hurt because she refused to discuss the misunderstanding that she was Katie’s mother. He wanted to talk with her about it and she assumed he was upset.
But what if the opposite was true? What if Lily’s question hadn’t upset him at all? What if it had instead made him want to redefine their relationship, much as she was learning to redefine her definition of success?
There was only one way to find out. It was a conversation she looked forward to finishing with him.
She took her time at the store deciding what she wanted to make. Like most kids, Katie’s palate wasn’t very sophisticated. Getting her to eat veggies took some creativity. Ultimately, she settled on herb roasted chicken with a mac n’ cheese side. She would dice up some veggies and incorporate them into the cheesy pasta, a sure way to get Katie to eat them. They’d have strawberry shortcake for dessert.
After adding a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine to her cart, she headed to the checkout. She hummed as she loaded her car, then sang to the radio as she drove to Will’s house.
Belatedly, she thought of Ryan and whether she should have included him in her dinner plans. The security specialist popped into her head as she turned onto Will’s street and spotted the cluster of paparazzi gathered in front of his house. She’d met Ryan at her first lesson with Katie after The Void concert and liked him immediately. He had a calm and patient nature that Katie responded to.
It still blew her mind that his protection was necessary. So many people collected at Will’s house with cameras every day hoping for a glimpse of Katie. Who would have thought a single two-minute video would lead to all this?
From what she’d observed, the people rotated fairly frequently, so it wasn’t like a single photographer camped out for days on end. They easily got bored and moved on to the next big celebrity moment. Hopefully that meant everyone would lose interest before much longer.
It was all good, she told herself as she used the spare garage door opener Gareth had given her to open his garage and pull her car in. She had bought enough food for Will to have some leftovers, so there would be plenty for Ryan if he wanted to join them.
She lifted the two large reusable bags containing everything she’d bought and headed out the garage’s side door to make her way through the backyard to Will’s. Large hedges between the properties kept her from the sight of anyone out front. Frank told her that a couple of particularly aggressive members of the paparazzi had tried using stepladders to get photos from over the hedges, but one call to the local police and threats of trespassing charges soon quelled those attempts.
Her heart bumped up to a sprint in anticipation of seeing Will as she stopped in front of the glass slider separating his deck from the kitchen and lifted a hand to knock. She paused when she saw through the glass that the fridge door was open. It blocked whoever was bent over getting something. Not wanting to startle them, she waited until the person stood and closed the fridge door.
It was a woman.
Jasmine hadn’t ever seen her before. The slender brunette looked like she was in her mid-to-late twenties. She wore a loose sage green button-down over a tank in the same color and a summery white miniskirt with a shredded hem. Her feet were bare, the nails painted a bright coral. The shade matched the one coating her long, manicured fingernails. In