Page 83 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

“Oooh, is that the #Glasslighting girl?” she says. “I’ve been following this!”

At some point before I zoned out, I pulled up Gigi’s Instagram, and the aesthetically coordinated grid is front and center. I’ve been stalking it for the latest updates, poring over details to see if anything new sticks out.

“Oh,” I stammer. “I… Maybe? I dunno. I wandered here for… fashion tips.”

“Oh,” Norma chirps, deflating slightly. “Well, normally I wouldn’t circle around the carcass of someone’s relationship like a vulture, but she’s divorcing some music guru, and the whole thing just sidetracked the recording of an album I’ve been waiting for.”

Somewhere, a chain reaction in my head makes my brain want to explode. I reach for my coffee in an effort to buy time to respond and end up scorching my tongue. Norma looks immediately stricken.

“Oh honey, let me get you some water,” she says. “And let me know if you see anything on there about them settling this whole thing soon, or none of us may live to see that reunion album. It’s The Blinding Lytes. You know them, right? Even people your age usually know their song “Come Cruise Along”, from the eighties. I actually kissed the guitarist once, way before they were famous. I’m such a sucker for a good power ballad.

“Anyway, the label pulled the studio deal and the band is digging in their heels – Johnny always was too damn stubborn – and it delayed the whole tour. Such a mess. I was trying to figure out if they’re ever going to reschedule for Jacksonville, and that’s how I got sucked in. There’s this ugly cat. He’s so unfortunate looking that he’s actually kind of cute – a lot like my second husband. And the record guy is scruffy and handsome, much like the man who was almost my third husband. And this girl may or may not be one of the greatest actors of her generation. She’s either been through hell or is completely working this guy over, possibly both. It all sounds too crazy to be true.”

I gulp down the glass of water she brings me in hopes that I can get away with simply nodding and raising my eyebrows in a way that whole-heartedly agrees: Yes. This is totally crazy.

When she wanders back towards the stove, telling me something about that list of shops, I’m only halfway listening. I close the lid of my laptop. My chair makes a scuffing sound across the tile as I scoot away from the table.

“I think I’m going to shower really quick,” I say around my semi-scorched tongue. “While the coffee cools down. I just need to, um. I’ll be right –”

I’m watching Norma as she watches me in my attempt to skirt out of the room. This is how I miss that Quentin is coming through the doorway. This is also how Norma definitely doesn’t miss the subsequent collision, when I ram right into Quentin’s chest. We both make an embarrassing sort of ‘oof’ sound. Our eyes meet, dazed.

“Hey. You okay?” he asks. His hands find my upper arms. It’s an innocent enough touch. Warm. Steadying. The way I jerk away from it, though, is definitely not what someone who is here on a romantic weekend getaway would do.

I try to make it better by patting his chest. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t make it better, it only makes the whole thing more awkward. I can feel two sets of eyes boring into me.

“I’m great,” I say. “Just gonna…”

I point in the direction of the bedroom, and I’m about to scurry off, but then I remember that I don’t trust Quentin not to say something idiotic, like telling her why we’re really here. After the thing with Teddy that landed us in Florida, I’m taking zero chances. I snag him by the arm and give him a toss of my head, indicating we’ve got serious business to discuss, in private.

“Sorry,” I tell Norma. “We’ll just be a minute.”

“Oh honey, don’t apologize on my account. I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off him either,” she smirks. “Take all the time you need.”

Quentin is still giving me that dazed and confused look when I usher him into the bedroom and close the door behind me.

“Is everything…?” he begins.

“She knows. Not about us. About Teddy and Gigi.”

“What? How? I mean, I know this case is big, but we’re five hundred miles from home.”

“She listens to The Blinding Lytes,” I say, throwing a hand in the air as if this fact is completely ridiculous and made up.

Quentin accepts this with a knowing nod. “Yeah, they postponed the reunion album.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“It’s big news,” he says. “I added it to the case notes last week.”

I bristle. Is he trying to act like I don’t know as much about this case – my case – as he does? We’ve got tomes of case notes at this point. It’s hard to keep up.

“Well, none of our notes mean anything if we can’t find Teddy and get him back to Memphis before Monday morning.”

“We’ll find him,” he says. “But in the meantime, we probably need to keep our host from figuring out that we’re…”

“Not in here banging each other’s brains out?” I finish. There it is again – that flash in his eyes, like the flick of a lighter. I hold my bottom lip between my teeth, clutching my clothes. “Sorry, that was…”

Accidental?

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