Page 76 of Find Me in California

“Ruby needs her medication and sleep.”

“Who are you?”

The man’s brows rise at Matt’s aggressive tone. Julia touches his arm, startling him. He whirls on her.

“This is Trevor, Mama Rose’s caretaker.”

Matt pulls himself back and mumbles an apology. He’s losing his head.

“Excuse us.” Trevor swings the wheelchair around. “Good night, Julia.”

“Good night, Trevor. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Matt watches Trevor take Magnolia away. His heart clangs in his ears. They need to finish their conversation.

He starts to follow them.

Julia grabs his arm. “Matt.”

“What?” he snaps at her and goes to shake off her hand when he notices how pale she is. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” He’s freaking out.

“Why are you acting like you know her?” Her tone is wary accusation.

He glances in the direction Trevor took Ruby Rose, but they’re gone. He turns back to Julia. “I don’t know. I don’t understand it myself. Over the weekend, I thought I was ...” Tripping? Maybe he still is. The drugs could still be in his system and his brain is short-circuiting.

Julia stares hard at him. She isn’t going to drop this.

He scrubs his jaw, frustrated. “Before tonight, I’ve never met your grandmother, at least not the way she is now. I spent the weekend with a woman. Sometimes she had your voice, sometimes not. But she lookedlike a younger version of your grandmother. Her name was Magnolia Blu.”

Julia gives him side-eye and warily moves a step away from him.

“I was a mess this weekend,” he rushes to explain before she calls a doctor to have him committed. “I was drinking, there were drugs. We had those conversations and you told me those stories. I must have projected her. For a while there, I thought she really was there with me.”

“Were you hallucinating?”

“I must have been because it’s impossible your grandmother was really there with me when she was here, right?”

“Right.”

“She felt so real, though,” he says, impassioned, unable to hold himself together. He can still smell the chlorine in her hair and taste the weed on her tongue. “I swear I wasn’t alone this weekend.”

“You and I spent a lot of time on the phone.”

“But she was in the room with me.”

“Then who were you with?”

He opens his mouth to say “no one,” but the words lodge in his throat.

“Just say it, Matt.”

“It was her, Magnolia. She had the same necklace as your grandmother. I don’t know.” He tosses up his hands. “Maybe Ruby mistook me for my grandfather, Matty. We probably look alike.” While it doesn’t explain how Julia’s grandmother brought up parts of their conversation from the motel, it’s the only explanation he can make any sense of.

Julia cuts a hand between them. “Not possible.”

“How so?”

“First of all, I’m the one who asked you about opening yourself up to love.”

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