Page 29 of Things We Tell Ourselves

“How did she know he was on the couch?” Camille whispers.

“Buck informed us that he was at the gate. We pulled up the security cameras on her phone after that,” Nancy reveals, straightening. “Don’t give the boy a hard time,” she tells Leah.

Leah smirks. “The boy wouldn’t know what a hard time was if it slapped him in the face.”

Once she’s behind Leah, Nancy holds up the hand towel. She takes the ends in either hand, pulling it tight as she points the towel at Leah’s backside with her hand. In one quick motion, she lets go of it with her other hand, slinging the loose end of the towel. It snaps against Leah’s rear end, giving her a jolt. Leah’s eyes bulge in surprise as she curses under her breath, snapping her head around to glare at Nancy, who lets out a loud cackle and hurries off to the bathroom. Leah turns back to them, laughing to herself. Wade’s shaking his head at them.

“He didn’t want to bother you until that Sadie chick was ready to meet you,” he retorts over his mother’s laughter.

Leah’s face turns somber. “Her name is Sadie,” she chews, carefully weighing out the name.

“Yeah,” Wade nods, “Sadie Quinn.”

“Quinn,” Nancy repeats, sounding more like a question than a statement, reappearing behind Leah. She narrows her eyes at Wade.

Wade opens his mouth, but Leah pushes back from them.

“I need to get dressed. Tell your brother I’ll be out shortly, and I expect him to be in the living room when I come out, with or without the girlfriend.”

They back up as Nancy shuts the door. Camille turns to Wade.

“So is it true?” she asks, trying not to look too excited. “Is Sadie’s sister the woman from the text messages?”

He keeps his gaze straight ahead, not giving away any emotion. “It would appear so.”

Camille nods. “Maybe she will get to make you that coffee after all.”

“I would rather let you beat me unconscious with my Babe Ruth bat.”

“Wow,” she grins, glancing up at him as he fights to keep a straight face, “you must really hate coffee.”

He breaks into a smile.

Riding her wave of success, she continues, “Did you happen to notice that towel in Nancy’s hand?”

“Yeah,” he replies, blissfully unaware that it was because of that towel and the way that Nancy so playfully popped Leah’s rear end that Camille is certain that not only was Nancy not heterosexual, but that Nancy Ortego and Leah Bloom are more than friends.

“Do you think she was helping her in the shower?”

“I don’t think Nan was in the shower with her if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, still not looking like he’s grasping what she’s trying to say, “but she did say Mom got sick, so she could have been cleaning that up.”

Camille hadn’t thought of that. But she didn’t believe Nancy would carry around and play with a towel if she’d used it to clean up a mess.

“Maybe,” Camille continues carefully, “she helped your mom get undressed.”

“That’s a possibility,” Wade shrugs, nonchalant. He glances down at her, seeing the way she gapes at him. “What? You’ve never had a friend help you clean up?”

“No, I’ve always been perfectly capable.”

“Well,” he says as they walk out into the living room, “If you need help while you’re here, I’m available.”

She turns to him, but he’s already doubled his stride, walking up to his brother on the couch.

“Are you blind?” Easton shouts at the TV.

Wade walks around the back of the couch. “Hey.” He leans over the back of the couch, slapping Easton on the back. “You better get that chick out here. You pissed Mom off by not telling her that you were here. You both better be ready when Mom walks out in a minute.”

“Christ,” Easton groans, not taking his eyes off the game, “it’s not like she didn’t know that I was here as soon as we got to the gate.”

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