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Upstairs were three bedrooms and two baths, one attached to the master suite which was already made up. Carpeting up here, basic cream berber, and the furniture she’d ordered was sturdy and plain.

The whole house was comfortable, masculine and . . .

My heart fell.

Way too big for one person.

My enthusiasm plummeted to the bottom of the sound.

I trudged down the stairs and hefted Jillian’s suitcase from the foyer without making eye contact with either her or with Noah, who was busy opening the windows and letting some air in.

“What’s wrong, Peaches?” Jilly asked, naturally caustic voice sending a fresh arrow in. “You don’t like the color scheme?”

Blue was my favorite. Okay—I had a lot of favorite colors, but blue and brown and yellow—that was my favorite combo. The whole house had been done on a minute’s notice, with me in mind. Jillian’s apology, I guess, for leaving me alone so long—not that it was needed.

Apparently she’d been sad too.

“It’s amazing, Jilly,” I said, infusing my voice with sincerity. I was an actor, right? I knew how to take real emotions and displace them to something that was needed. “Thank you.”

Jilly buys nothing without biting the coin first. “Bullshit ‘Thank you’—what’s wrong?”

I cut eyes at Noah, whom I hoped was out of earshot. “This house, Jilly—it’s awesome. But it’s too much. Too big for just me, and too . . . too
nice
for temporary. This is supposed to be a short-time gig—”

Jilly looked away.

“It
is
a temporary gig, right?”

She shrugged. “You know how these things go,” she said vaguely. “If your character is a hit, you get hired on for a while. I didn’t want you to be in some temporary cabin with polyester sheets, is that so bad?”

“But who’s going to be here after you go?” I asked, trying not to let my voice throb. That had been half the problem with Malibu. Four guest bedrooms, a gym, and a master suite that had room for a computer desk, a giant television, and two walk-in closets. And when Vinnie was gone I’d been the sole survivor of the zombie apocalypse, the head zombie himself.

Jilly stared at me as though I were deranged. “How about the cute gay guy who’s been
throwing himself
at you for the last hour and a half.”

I stared back at her. “He was being polite, Jilly. And I’m
straight
, remember?”

Jilly cringed—I guess I’d thrown a lot of venom into the word “straight.”

“Yeah,” she started, “uhm, about that—”

“I opened everything up so it’s not all stuffy,” Noah said, walking in from the kitchen. “You may want to close it when evening falls. There’s food in the fridge for a week—you gave a list to my grandma, right?”

Jilly nodded, and I felt . . . useless, suddenly. I’d expected to show up to a crappy cabin and had ended up in a palace, and apparently Jilly had spent a very busy week getting the hookup on and making sure we were taken care of.

I remembered the week when Vinnie and I had survived on twenty bucks between us, with a little help from leftovers from the restaurant where I’d worked at the time. I’d had life skills once—but I don’t know if I had life skills like Jilly.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I can see why the
Wolf’s Landing
people rec’d your family so heartily—you guys ever want to start an actual business—you know, catering to rental companies and shit, I’ll hook you up with the permits and publicity—you name it. You guys totally came through.”

Noah grinned. “Well, Gran said you tipped in advance. Motivation—I’m telling you, it totally works.” He flashed that destroyer of brain cells on me. “So, Miss Lombard, we’ve got a press conference scheduled for tomorrow at ten, a brief tour of the soundstage, and lunch with the producers in the specialty restaurant at the Global.”

“A hotel?” I asked, surprised.

“Second best around here for dinner.” Noah winked.

Next to the Rockin’ Surf and Dockn’ Turf, that was pretty high praise.

“You’re not going to fill them in on your little secret?”

Noah shook his head. “No, sir, I am not. The TV people are nice and all, and really respectful of Bluewater, but I do
not
like to share. Besides—Cappy gets irritated if he gets too busy and the cooking gets bad. I like it as is.”

We had not met the mysterious Cappy while we’d been eating—I guess Jilly and I didn’t rank.

“Fair enough—I’ll be sure to keep your secret,” I said, teasing.

Noah stuck out a hand, like a grade-schooler swearing a blood oath. “And I, in turn, will endeavor to keep yours, good sir.”

I blinked, puzzled, but took his hand. “And what secret would that be?”

Suddenly, Noah’s confidence, his banter deserted him, and his hand grew sweaty in mine. “Nothing,” he said. “Uh, I mean, you know, whatever secrets you might have. You know, secret pact between driver and driven or, uh, something like that.”

He’d been thinking something completely different—I knew it. But I wasn’t going to ask. If I didn’t say it, he couldn’t know it. If he didn’t know it, this entire fantasy I’d been indulging in—the flirting, the “research,” the pleasant stirrings of attraction—was just that.
Fantasy
. It was like playing a role where I got to flirt with the hot younger guy. We could banter and smile, and I could appreciate his body and his clean cheekbones and obsidian eyes, but I didn’t have to open up—not emotionally. Because I knew that the minute somebody started to play “research” with
me
, all they’d find was the great yawning void of grief where Vinnie used to be.

“Well, I’ll be sure to trust you with my secrets, then,” I promised soberly.

He worried his lip, like I’d hurt him somehow. “No, you won’t,” he said, half to himself. “But it was nice to imagine.” He straightened and looked at Jilly. “So, I’ll come get you at nine; sometimes they run me around on errands between one gig and the other, but either way, I’ll be back at the soundstage at twelve to take you both to lunch. They told me that it’s going to be a long working lunch—they want the entire cast, and everybody’s running lines for two scripts’ worth, that’s why the hotel. There’s not a good place for the whole cast on the soundstage site—usually they do business in the little portable trailer office, but this is just too big.”

“Oh,” I said, a little surprised. “I thought we weren’t shooting until next week.”

“You’re not,” Noah supplied, then looked abashed, like he was embarrassed to know so much. “I mean, my dad’s building some outside sets—he doesn’t have to be done until your shooting date. But I think the writers want to see how the new additions to the cast go—you included—so they know what to do next.”

“That’s different.”

Noah shrugged. “Yeah, well—the writers here are different. This show—you know, it’s a labor of love, and it really took off last year. They want to keep up the momentum.”

Wow. A labor of love.
Warlock Tea
had been that way. Again, I felt that sinking sadness for having to abandon that show when I’d loved the work. I didn’t regret leaving so much as I regretted hurting the show—it had been really good.

“I can’t wait to work on it.” Some of the awkwardness dissipated, burned away by the sincerity in my voice.

“Well, good. I’m mostly just a pair of ears and sentient transportation, but I think everybody’s really happy to have you on board.”

Yeah, he’d like to board
you
, Connor, don’t doubt it.

Shut up, Vinnie, you’re supposed to be dead.

Noah left shortly after that, and Jilly and I both went up to our rooms to unpack. We met downstairs about an hour later, and to my surprise Jilly was a good six inches shorter.

“Holy hell! What just happened?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” she snapped, looking at the obviously new and pricey cross-trainers on her feet like they were alien babies eating her toes. “I thought we’d go for a walk before dinner.”

“What’s for dinner?” Don’t ask me—I’d been eating whatever the maids had pitied me with over the last year.

“I know you can cook, moron. Go throw something together for us. We can walk while it’s cooking.”

I had to think for a minute. Oh, yeah—I
had
been the one cooking for Vinnie and me. I remembered our first dinner party in the apartment
before
the beach houses. Jilly and a few friends from our restaurant days. I’d made enchiladas, because cooking with my mother was still one of the few good memories I’d brought from home.

I rooted through the fridge, as ordered, and found no tortillas, cheddar, or salsa, but there
was
some broccoli, feta cheese, and lasagna noodles, as well as some high-end canned sauces.

Broccoli lasagna—natch. If you added extra water to the sauce, you didn’t have to boil the noodles. Just dump, wrap in foil, and bake—there were even black olives, a small bag of mozzarella, fresh garlic, and some sourdough. Prep took twenty minutes and the lasagna was in the oven.

I worked quietly, the basics of cooking coming back to me like I’d never lived on takeout and maid service, and I left the garlic bread for when we got back. The whole time, I was wondering what was on Jilly’s mind. The old Jilly would have brought down her laptop and watched trashy television while she worked through the afternoon. The walk sounded like me, actually, but before . . . before, she would have snorted, stayed on the couch, and told me she’d call me when the fire alarm went off.

I remembered, like from a long distance, time at the bottom of a well, that when Vinnie had been alive, Jilly had come to my house sometimes—a couple of times a month, really—to do nothing but work and sip wine and throw casual barbs at Vinnie and me that we would return happily, because she was our friend.

Clients, yeah—she had a shitload. Family too. But she’d come to our house because there’d been something there, something she’d treasured.

I’d thought Vinnie’s death had taken that from her, the way his death had taken everything from me. I guessed maybe Jilly wanted it back. But still . . .

“Why the tennis shoes?” I asked as we padded companionably down the road together. It was six o’clock and sunset wasn’t for another three hours here, but high clouds softened the sun. An island was visible across the sound—close enough to swim to if you were
really
fit and the water hadn’t been bone-breakingly cold. The side facing us was pretty sheer—difficult to build on, more difficult to get to. I wondered if there was a ferry port on the other side, a small boat dock and a cabin, or if it was just a growth, a protrusion of forest and wildlife that nobody ever visited. Thousands of people could have seen this island, and thought it was beautiful, but only a few might have touched it, because it wasn’t meant for them.

I loved that idea—but given the premium land went for here, I was guessing there was a cabin or something.

“’Cause,” she muttered. “No goddamned cigarettes, half an hour of—” she shuddered “—exercise every day.”

I tried to remember what we’d been talking about— Oh yeah! Tennis shoes! Then it hit me. “Why the life changes?”

We’d managed to convince her to stop smoking two years ago. After Vinnie’s second stint in rehab, we said if he had to quit the booze, she had to quit the smokes. She’d agreed—but only if Vinnie did a full sixty days. I remember her face when she’d told me she was tired of seeing kids end up in the headlines, dead of addiction and stupidity.

It had been taut and oddly middle-aged and vulnerable without the makeup and the hand gestures and the cigarette wielded like a fencing foil.

She looked like that now. She’d even washed some of her makeup off when we’d been unpacking.

“Because I’m fifty-five.” She shrugged.

“You don’t look it,” I said sincerely, and she turned and patted my cheek wordlessly before continuing on.

I followed, thinking we were probably heading for the little beach I’d seen driving in. Oddly, I thought it would be a good place for a dog, which was funny because I’d never wanted a dog before in my life.

“McKenna’s in rehab,” she said abruptly. “Jerome
should
be, and in Weight Watchers to boot.”

Her kids—I was aghast. “McKenna . . .?” Last I’d seen McKenna, she’d been sixteen years old, and still a little girl who wanted to be just like her mom. I knew that she’d become involved in LA’s party scene since high school—Jillian had been worried, but not overly so. I remember
that
pat on the cheek, when I’d asked if McKenna was okay.
“Don’t worry, doll. You and Vinnie made it through your party years, and you’re fine!”

Well, yeah, sort of. Vinnie did rehab. Twice. Once for pills, once for booze—he’d been fragile.

But Jilly had seemed to think her daughter could take it, tough as nails, just like mama.

Apparently not.

“Sorry, hon.” I was at a loss. “Is there anything—”

“I was not a great mother,” she said ruminatively.

“They’re not
dead
,” I told her, my voice sharp. If my mom showed up on my doorstep and offered to help me cook again, I’d break down and cry. But she wouldn’t because I was gay, and because the last time I’d had any contact with them was signing the payoff papers that Jillian had given them: for a fixed payment every year they agreed to never say anything to the press but the brief that Jilly had provided.

No mom for me.

But that didn’t mean
Jilly
didn’t have time to fix
her
relationship with her children.

“I know that!” she snapped, voice hurt. “I do. And what I meant was that I wasn’t a great mother
then
, when they were growing up. But the thing is, they’re
still
growing up. They still need me. So I gotta be around.”

I sighed happily and looped my arm over her shoulders.
That
was the direction I liked to hear. But the tension in her spine didn’t relax, and I wondered what else was wrong.

“You’re still growing up,” she said abruptly.

I looked at her in surprise. “I’ll be thirty in September.”