a distant memory now. From another life.
Ella clears her throat first and then speaks.
“That is not the conversation I have come here to have.”
I’m a little surprised. I thought she wanted to talk about it. About a potential relationship. Our future and all that other stuff women usually want to talk about.
Ella steps towards me.
“I thought we should discuss the next steps.”
“Next steps?”
“In finding your mother. I intend to complete the job I have been paid for.”
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my pants. I feel like I’m going to implode. First Jay and now Ella?
“The case is closed. I want to make this very clear to you. I don’t want to go looking for my mother.”
“Why the hell not?”
“She has had forty-three years to come looking for me. Do you get that? She has had a lot of time to wonder what happened to me. And if she’s dead, she’s dead. If she’s alive, I don’t care about that either.”
My shoulders are rising and falling. My eyes are hard and focused on her.
“Then do it so you can ask her why she left you. So she can answer your questions. You don’t want her to be a part of your life now, fine. But she owes you some answers.” Ella’s voice is raised too. Her attitude is determined and spirited.
She excites me. I want to keep hearing her speak. But not about this. The subject is closed.
I empty the drink down my throat and the whisky burns my stomach.
“You don’t have to pay me anything extra for it,” she adds.
I look at her with a smirk and shake my head.
“You think I care about the checks I can write you?”
“No, I’m pretty sure you don’t,” she says in a low voice.
I turn away from her. I am done with this. I shouldn’t have started this project anyway.
“I don’t understand why you’re hiding from the truth, Reed.”
I turn to her again. This time, I’m going to growl. This time, she’ll know what I sound like when I’m at my last straw.
“I know the truth. I’ve known it for a very long time, Ella. I am far better off alone. If my mother abandoned me, she did me a fuckin’ favor.”
I smash my glass against the wall and it cracks and breaks into a million pieces. Ella backs away and then turns and leaves.
I don’t chase after her. She should go. She should get away from me.
16
Ella
“Why are you even wasting your time on this?” Gigi asks while we dig into our chocolate brownies. Hudson is with his dad, and we decided to go get coffee somewhere nice and have the afternoon to ourselves. We haven’t been able to do this in a while. She’s been busy with raising a kid, I was traveling, and then I disappeared for a weekend. Now I’m back. I’m not working again, and it feels like we finally have the time to reconnect.
“I don’t know, I guess I just want to get to the bottom of it,” I reply, dabbing the corners of my mouth with a paper towel.
Gigi sighs and sits back in her chair. I can see she’s happy with her brownie. Chocolate always puts us in a good mood.
“But really, it’s not your problem.”
“I know that.”
“He made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want you to go looking for his mother.”
“Maybe I won’t find her.”
“I hope you don’t because I don’t know how you will even begin to deal with that. That man sounds like he needs help,” Gigi says, rolling her eyes.
I’m trying not to think about the look I saw in Reed’s eyes the last time we spoke. There was a single vein pulsing down the middle of his forehead. He looked like he was about to shatter the way his glass did. But that is exactly the reason why I want to do this for him—find his mom.
He doesn’t realize how much he needs to let go of his past. He needs closure. He has to forgive before he can forget.
“You see something in him, don’t you?” Gigi asks, breaking through my thoughts. I’ve been piercing the same piece of brownie over and over again, thinking about him.
I look up at her, and she holds my gaze.
“I mean apart from the fact that he floats your boat. Sexually, I mean,” she adds with a giggle.
“Yes, Gigi, I know what you mean!”
She chuckles some more and then takes a sip of her coffee. The cappuccino is frothy and