Page 104 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

Meanwhile, just like a soap opera, our daytime saga continues. Gigi has moved on from the pout to the deep frown. She cries as if on command. She makes claims that there are no police or medical records of Teddy’s abuse because she couldn’t seek help out of fear. Teddy remains quiet. It’s damning. We’re trudging closer to the end of their witness list, and I’m itching to put Kimberly on the stand as soon as possible, but dread has crept into my bones.

What if we can’t win this?

When I crawl into bed with Quentin’s table lamp still on and a stack of notes across his knees, the possibility seems to be gnawing at him as well. He rubs his eyes and sets the papers aside, sighing as he wraps me in his arms and tucks me against his chest. His fingers make lazy lines through my hair. I nuzzle against the warmth of his skin.

“You ready for tomorrow?” I say.

“We’re ready,” he counters. When he says it, his words vibrate through his chest, against my ear.

“I’m ready for it to all be over,” I admit.

“So impatient,” he teases. I trace the line of hair down his chest, along his belly, until he’s threading his fingers through mine.

We talk through the details again, as we have so many times before. The words are starting to lose meaning. The facts are beginning to blur.

“You know what I don’t understand,” he says. “Whatever happened to Grayson Smith?”

The implication of this seeps into my consciousness slowly. I sit up, suddenly struck by the strange realization that this could mean something. What exactly I don’t know but… something. We exchange a confused, curious, hopeful look.

“That,” I say, “is an excellent question.”

“Well,” he says, with a spark in his eyes. “Maybe we should find out.”

27.

Late summer air whips through my hair as we cruise the paths of a private golf course. Quentin had to name drop Erving just to get us a tee time, which happens to be conveniently located one spot ahead of Grayson Smith’s standing daily round.

“Do I have to pretend to golf?” I ask.

“Yes,” Quentin says.

“I’m going to be bad at this,” I argue, adjusting the collar of the polo shirt I begrudgingly bought for this occasion. “You know how much I hate being bad at things?”

“I’m counting on you being bad at this,” he says.

He gets to the tee box and puts a club in my hands, wrapping his arms around me from behind.

“What are you doing?”

“Stalling for time,” he says against my neck.

Eventually, after a few embarrassingly awful practice swings on my part and three balls that I send skittering in haphazard directions, another cart rolls up behind us. The tanned, lean guy and his caddy climb out. The latter is already selecting a club. The former approaches us with an apologetic tip of his head.

“Mind if we play through?” he asks.

Quentin slips away from me, grinning and extending his hand. “Grayson Smith. You’re just the man we were hoping to see.”

***

“Look, this is bad publicity for me,” Grayson says, readjusting his white golf hat nervously. “My manager said they’d pull me from the tour if this keeps up. None of this has been worth the trouble. Lesson learned: don’t get involved with a woman who tells you she’s in the middle of a divorce.”

“I thought you weren’t involved with her?” Quentin says.

“I mean, not involved involved. I guess I could have been. She made the rounds for a while, made it known she was available, even managed to hook up with a few guys I know. Let’s just say that one of them is rumored to have the kind of thing Ajax can’t wash off, if you know what I mean. And I don’t like to share. Only child syndrome, I guess.”

Quentin and I exchange a glance.

“So what was in it for you?” I finally ask. It’s always right there. Everyone has a motive. A polished guy like Grayson Smith can pretend otherwise, but the guilty glint in his green eyes is telling a different story.

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