Page 119 of Between the Lines

“Yes,” he says and doesn’t make a move to get off my bed.

I smack one of his feet. “Come on! You need to get your butt down the hall and into the shower!”

He chuckles and rolls out of my bed, rising to stand tall in yesterday’s rumpled and ruined tuxedo. He carefully tucks himself back into his pants, pulls up the zipper, and gives me a mock-serious look.

“If you get downstairs first, tell her I’ll be out soon.”

“I can’t tell her that! I’ll let her know that you might be sleeping in, which you normally don’t.”

He looks down at his watch, and then his face goes slack. “It’s after nine.”

“Go. Go!”

He cracks open the door just as another ring of his thunderous doorbell echoes across the house.

I hurry to get ready. It takes me a few minutes to brush my teeth, pull my hair into a braid, and change my clothes. I quickly spritz some perfume and pause by the mirror.

The last time I saw Mandy, she was glamorous. In a bohemian, richly nonchalant kind of way. She’s the type of woman who could get expensive laser treatments and facials, but is happy to wear a pair of oversized jeans and no makeup at all… just a pair of designer sunglasses. Like Frankie Swan,The Real HousewifeI wrote the memoir for a while ago. I know the type.

I don’t look bad. But I look ordinary, and a little tired. It’ll have to do. Because Mandy’s perspective is missing from Aiden’s book, and I’m determined to get it.

I head downstairs. The doorbell has stopped ringing, but based on Aiden’s earlier comment, it might just mean that his sister has let herself in.

I find her at his large kitchen island. Her blonde hair has a load of highlights I hadn’t noticed last time, and she looks more tanned than previously. She starts talking without turning around. “It’s not like you to sleep in. You’re not sick?”

“Sorry. He’s not up yet, I think. Or at least his door wasn’t open.” I am the worst liar. “Hi, Mandy.”

She twists to face me. Her eyes, too shrewd and too like Aiden’s, look me up and down. “Hi, Charlotte. I was hoping you’d be in, too.”

“You were?”

“Yes.” Her face softens with a slight smile. “I was wondering… I know you’ve been wanting to talk to me. For the book.”

I need to play this cool.

“Yes, but only if you’re comfortable. Would you like something to drink?” I walk past her to the giant side-by-side fridge and grab some orange juice. “You decide the parameters, too.”

“Right. Like whether or not I’ll be directly quoted?”

“Yes. Your input could just be used as the background.”

“Which means I won’t be mentioned at all.”

I pour myself a large glass of OJ, and after seeing her nod, a second one for her. “Yup. It’ll help inform my chapters, but no one needs to know the info came from you. You know that Aiden will have full control over the manuscript, too. I’m sure he’ll let you read it. You can nix anything you don’t like.”

She taps her nails on the marble counter. Short, oval-shaped, with blood-red polish on them. She’s in a well-fitted tank top today and a pair of oversized white jeans. Her hair is loose, and she’s wearing what I suspect is that “no-makeup” makeup look that’s so hard to achieve for us mere mortals.

“Okay. I like the sound of that. Because I’ve... well I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah?”

She pulls her eyebrows together tightly. “This could be a good thing. It might not be. But... it could be. Like, a chance for Aiden to get some vindication.”

I nod. “Yes, it’s an opportunity to tell his story.Yourstory, in some ways.”

“I hate the way the media...” She shakes her head a little. “It’s just so raw, you know?”

I can’t even imagine. Having your father dragged away in handcuffs, having to see him in the courtroom every day, embroiled in a case so widely publicized that it got its own hashtag on Twitter at the time.

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