Page 112 of A Whole New Play

It doesn’t work.

“You can trust Carter’s lawyer is going to be in touch,” Corey states coldly. “Now, go.”

She sputters more nonsense about this all being a misunderstanding. She tries to tell anyone who will listen that she’s old friends with Abby and Andy’s mom and dad. No one cares.

Just before she’s about to be shoved through the door, Sara’s crazy eyes find mine once more and her pleading expression morphs into a fierce scowl. “You’re a child. You have no business being with a man like Carter. You can’t be what he needs.”

The security guard shoves her out the door, but her words ring in my ears long after she’s gone.

“Don’t listen to her, Valerie,” Carlee tells me. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Yeah,” Abby and Andy say at the same time. Their fingers lace with mine. “You’re great.”

I smile at the twins. “Thanks, guys.”

They lead me back to their projects, and the rest of the crowd eventually return their attention to their own kid’s projects. I try to pay attention when Abby resumes describing the mechanics of how her project works, but it’s hard to focus.

I find myself looking at the door each time it opens, hoping Carter will arrive so he can explain what the hell just happened.

35

CARTER

“Hey, man. It’s Corey. I know you’re in a meeting with Davis, but when you get this message, you should call Valerie. Some weird shit just went down with Sara.”

Sara?

I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the screen. The voicemail is from an hour ago.

The moment I left Davis’s office, I hopped in my car and started speeding down busy Dallas highways to try and catch the end of the twins’ science fair. I hadn’t bothered to check my phone for any messages until now.

I look both ways at the stop sign on the outskirts of Rose Hill before continuing down the winding, two-lane road and dialing Corey back.

The phone rings. I hit the button on the dashboard to make the call come through the car’s speakers.

Corey picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey, man.” Crowd noise travels through the speaker with his greeting.

“Hey, I just got your voicemail. What the hell happened?” I turn left onto the road that will take me to the twins’ school.

“Sara happened,” he grumbles.

“Give me specifics.”

Corey goes on to tell me that my former friend approached Abby and Andy and tried to talk to them about me. My blood boils when I hear how she tried to assert herself to remain even when Valerie asked her to leave my kids alone.

“Shit.” I shake my head, wondering if I should have been less cordial with Sara when she approached me at Jerry’s Smoke Pit. Maybe then she wouldn’t have felt like she could impose herself on my kids. “That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, and it gets worse. Valerie told Carlee she’s pretty sure Sara was the one who took the picture of you guys in Minnesota and then posted it online.”

“What. Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Shit,” I repeat the expletive, not knowing what else to say. It’s weird enough that Sara showed up in Rose Hill, but it’s more concerning that she was in Minnesota. She doesn’t live there. And I’m pretty sure she’s not a Lonestars fan. She wouldn’t have gone to see the World Series.

No. There’s only one reason Sara would’ve traveled up north and stood outside my hotel room.

A chill washes over my anger, replacing it with a healthy dose of fear. “She’s stalking me.”

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