Page 55 of Flawless

I exhale slowly, blowing the breath through my lips to try to calm my frustration.

“Listen, I don’t know if I can get a ticket that soon. Where are you anyway?”

“I’m in Atlanta.”

Lifting an eyebrow, I say, “Okay, I’m not that far from you, actually.”

“How far is not far?”

“A little over three hundred miles. A little under a five-hour drive.”

“Where are you?”

I debate about telling her where I am since it’s been such a closely guarded secret. Not even Mattia knows where exactly in the world I am.

“In the Carolinas.”

“Okay, I um...I can drive there,” she says.

“Let me get back to you, and we’ll set up a plan to meet up.”

“Sure.”

I end the call scratching my head, trying to figure out where my daughter and I will go, all the while trying to figure out how to break the news to Dani that I need to cut our time together short.

“Hey, is everything okay?” her voice calls softly to me from the doorway. “I just wanted to tell you that the sauce was thickening, so I turned it off.”

I stand from my bed and turn around to face her.

“Great job,” I say tiredly, walking towards her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I um...I have to leave for a while.”

“Leave? What’s going on, Z?”

“Nothing. It will be fine.”

“No, talk to me, please,” Dani says, grabbing my hands.

“Larisa needs me to get Zílda. She was crying, and she says that her fiancé broke things off with her.”

Dani frowns and says, “That’s horrible. Is she okay?”

Shrugging, I reply, “There’s always something with Larisa. Her life is a traveling circus.”

“Well, a breakup, especially with a fiancé, can be heartbreaking, Z. I can’t imagine how much she’s hurting over that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say, rubbing my forehead.

“So, where are you going with your daughter? Back home?”

“I don’t know. I still need to figure that part out. I am not ready to return home just yet. I know as soon as I touch down, there will be some reporters waiting to interview me. With the tournament still ongoing and the championship game about to take place, that will be the feather in their cap to get an interview with me or any shots of me.”

“Why can’t you stay here?”

“Here on the island?”

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