Page 15 of This Much Is True
Then I breathe. Deeply. Completely. Unencumbered.
“Gosh, that feels good,” I say, closing the closet.
I turn to figure out what to do with my dress when a cordless phone catches my eye.
“He still has a landline?” I pick it up off the bedside table and press the green button. A dial tone buzzes back at me. “I didn’t know people still used these.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and wonder if I should go find Luke. But as my gaze travels to the heap of hoops on the floor, I punch Stephanie’s number into the phone instead. Surprisingly, she answers.
“Hello?” she asks, her voice full of hesitation.
“Hey, Steph. It’s me.”
“Oh, thank God,” she says, exhaling. “Are you okay?”
I glance around Luke’s bedroom. “I’m fine. How areyou?”
“First, please remind your security team that I am your best friend, and rules don’t apply to me. The only reason I didn’t commit murder today is because Troy is freaking gorgeous, and I’m hoping he and I can hook up at some point.”
My laughter breaks the rest of the tension in my chest. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Otherwise, I’m fine. I’ll admit, I did get entirely too much joy out of telling your dad that you weren’t going to show up.And, I’ll also admit that I followed your father into the groom’s room to listen to him tell Tom.”
I gasp. “My father told Tom?”
“He sure did. A couple of security guys trailed us because your father literally started screaming at me and that got their attention.”
“I’m so sorry, Steph.”
“Don’t be.” She snorts. “I know he’s your dad, so with all due respect, fuck that guy. This literally made my year.”
I fall back into Luke’s pillows and close my eyes. Imagining my father screaming at Stephanie over something I did makes my stomach heave. But I talk myself down with reminders of how much my best friend dislikes Dad.
As if she knows I need the reminder, she launches into a spiel I hear at least four times a year.
“He doesn’t listen to you,” she says. “You get no time off. You’ve been burned out for two years, Laina, and he works you to the bone. He may be your father, but he doesn’t have your best interests at heart. If he did, he would’ve put a stop to Tom Waverly a long damn time ago.”
“I don’t need someone to put a stop to anything. I’m a big girl.”
“Yes, you are. But you’re hiding from Tom right now for a reason.” She steadies her tone, working to reduce the anger teeming from each word. “I don’t know what has gone on because you won’t tell me, but I see the way he looks at you when you don’t follow his script. If I were a betting girl, I’d say you wanted to get out of this a lot earlier than now but were afraid. Today, you just so happened to be surrounded by security in a place you felt comfortable and at a time when it was do or die. And you chose not to die—thank God.”
My heart races.How did she know?
“Speaking of a place you feel comfortable,” she says, “where are you?”
I sink deeper into the pillows.
I couldn’t have had this conversation before today. There was never any privacy. Stephanie and my agent, Anjelica, are the only two people I truly trust, but I never trusted that we weren’t being spied on or listened to. Becauseeveryoneis willing to doTom Waverly’s bidding. It’s a part of the charisma that makes him a box-office star.
“Troy brought me to Luke Marshall’s house,” I say.
“Wait a minute. Luke Marshall …” She hums. “The hot farrier we stalk on Social?”
“That would be the one.”
I can hear her wheels turning. “How do you know him?”
“Luke and I dated for a long time. We met when we were fifteen and started dating at seventeen.”
