Page 125 of The Fix-Up

Mikey hopped up. “Okay.”

When he was out of the room, Gil cleared his throat. “I, ah, won’t be here for dinner. I was wondering if Mikey could hang out with you and Oliver?”

Now that he said something, I noticed he was in his pressed khakis and dress shirt, clothes he didn’t wear as often these days. He looked freshly showered and shaved, hair parted and slicked back. Those little bits of gray around his hairline were more noticeable when he wore his hair that way. I liked it.

Then again, what didn’t I like about him? My hand curled around the glass of water.

“Oh.” Don’t ask. It’s not really your business, right? I asked anyway. “Where are you going?”

He hesitated, his eyes darting to the cabinet above my head. “Just a meeting. I should be back before eight.”

“Okay. No problem.” But something inside me, a swirling in my stomach, said otherwise.

I watched the door close behind him as he left.

It was well after eight and Gil wasn’t yet back, Oliver was asleep, and Mikey was sitting with his nightly bowl of popcorn watching his favorite television show. Occasionally, his loud, joyous laughter would filter through the house, and I smiled in response at the sound.

I was working on my mother’s one slipper. Um, no, it had not been completed for Mother’s Day, but I was hoping for Christmas now. My phone dinged with a notification. When I read the message, my stomach dropped like a stone.

ALI: Why is Gilbert having dinner with Peter Stone?

ME: I don’t know. Are you sure it’s him?

ALI: Oh, it’s him and Peter and a couple of other guys in suits. I recognize them, too. They’re with that development group that’s been sniffing around.

ME: Oh.

ALI: I thought Gil had changed his mind about selling.

ME: I was HOPING he would change his mind.

The way my heart was tangled up in a knot at the moment, I’d put a lot more hope in that than I’d realized. There was only one real reason for him to meet with them.

And he hadn’t even told me he was.

ALI: I should go over there and break that meeting up. Maybe I could accidentally spill something on Peter. For funsies.

ME: Don’t do that.

ME: Please.

ME: Ali?

An hour later, Gil found me lying in the middle of the gazebo, arms and legs spread out like a starfish. I couldn’t see the night sky through the wooden roof, but it pressed in all around me. Since that text from Ali, my brain had been in panic mode, zipping around at breakneck speed, one thought after another until I wasn’t sure anything made sense.

But if I thought hard enough, I would have realized nothing had made sense for a while. We had been living in a dream and everyone had to wake up from those at some point.

“Hi.” Gil stood above me, staring down at me. “Why are you on the ground?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Ah. How’s that going for you?”

“Horribly.” I sat up.

Gil stuffed his hands in his pockets and kicked at an invisible rock. “I guess you heard. Nothing really is a secret in this town.”

“Not unless you’re Ollie, it seems.” I folded my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.

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