Page 100 of Trip Me Up

I nodded at the taxi behind her. “You’re leaving?”

“I think I should.”

I should have known she’d leave. When things got complicated, there were two types of people. People who left—like my father—and people like Grandpa who stayed to fix things. Now I knew which type Sam was.

One of the bead-wig women scowled at me while another opened the taxi door for Sam. A third guided her inside and shut the door. Their arms crossed, the silver-wigged women formed a sparkling barrier between the taxi and the reporters and me.

I didn’t stay to watch the taxi pull away. I turned on the toe of my shiny dress shoe, and, shoving through the crowd that had gathered to witness the spectacle, stalked back toward the hotel. I paused only to toss Sam’s trophy into the trash.

* * *

I shoveda pillow over my face to drown out the jangling sound. My teeth buzzed.

When it didn’t stop, I pushed off the pillow. I rubbed the crust from my eyes and blinked to clear them. My phone flashed and chimed at the side of the hotel bed. The one I’d fallen onto, still wearing my tuxedo pants and shoes.

I stretched out my arm to grab the phone and squinted at it with one bleary eye. Gabi. I’d ignored her calls and texts last night—everyone’s, actually. I hadn’t even spoken to the bartender except to tell him I was a hotel guest, I wouldn’t try to drive, and to keep the whiskey coming.

“Hello?” My throat was sandpaper.

Gabi’s staccato accent stabbed my eardrum. “I’m in the lobby. Tell me your room number.”

“What?” Gabi was in Brooklyn, typing up my latest pages.

“Room number.”

As soon as I gave it to her, the line went silent.

Wincing, I sat up. I lumbered to the bathroom, keeping my head as steady as possible to avoid further trauma to my brain full of knives.

When Gabi knocked—too loud—I opened the door, still clutching the hand towel.

“Why are you here?”

She ignored my question and pushed past me into the room. I closed the door and leaned against its cool, hard surface.

She propped a hip on the desk. “Damage control. Plus, you didn’t answer your phone last night. I wanted to make sure you hadn’t done anything stupid.”

“Is drinking two hundred dollars’ worth of whiskey stupid?”

She glanced toward the bed. “At least you didn’t bring anything back with you.”

I closed my eyes to block out the unopened bottle of champagne floating in lukewarm water in the ice bucket.

“I got an email from the university’s lawyers on the way here.” Gabi’s eyes glittered. “Apparently, they were colluding with Happy Troll on this. Sam was just a front. They’re offering a share of the book’s royalties. In exchange for the ‘borrowing’ they did.”

My stomach turned over. “I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with—with that.”

So what if Sam was just the face the university and Heidi had used to sell the book? That face had lied to me every day for the last two months.

I wouldn’t take the fucking money. Not after Sam and her professor had spat on my art, my vocation. Not even to save the farm. “Find some charity to give it to. But not the Jones Foundation.”

“I thought you’d say that.” She pushed off the desk and strolled over to the table. She sniffed at the bouquet of crimson roses, still fresh-looking in their vase. “We could sue them.”

Vindication. I twisted the towel until the fabric strained and popped. The way Sam would squirm on the witness stand when she confessed to theft of my work.

But then I’d have to see her again. The lawyers would try to settle. They’d make me meet her across a conference table. I imagined the dramatic way I’d sit, fists clenched, face stony, while the lawyers offered deal after deal. Sam would cringe and cower.

Fuck, I didn’t want that.

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