Page 56 of Making the Save

Liam looked at me and I shook my head. Not in my experience.

“Doesn’t happen,” Liam explained. “It’s a family thing. We have a baseline ofI could eat.”

Sydney looked between the two of us like we were a type of person she was unfamiliar with. Maybe we were.

We weren’t jerks. We didn’t trash talk our ex’s on television. That was for sure. Hell, Liam had a long list of ex-lovers who, to this day, still adored him. We didn’t worry about what people said about us in the press. We didn’t have fake relationships. We played hockey. We ate. We made fun of each other.

We might have our quirks, but we were family.

Syd got to her feet, her grin lighting up her whole face. “Okay then. I guess I could eat.”

“That’s the spirit. Welcome to the family, Syd,” Liam said.

11

Sydney

“This is your car?” Wyatt asked the next morning, pointing at my large Range Rover.

“I like the dark windows,” I said.

I’d bought it at a time when anonymity meant everything. When I wanted a dark tank that could get me through the swarms of paps. While we were together John used my car to pick up his various girlfriends. The tinted windows hid his habits. I had to have the SUV cleaned and detailed after our “relationship” was over, to get the smell of the perfume out of the leather seats.

“Just doesn’t look like you, Tink.” he said. “You okay if I drive?”

“I can drive it,” I said, defensively. “I know it’s a big SUV, but I don’t have any problems driving it. Even in LA traffic.”

I hated driving in LA traffic, but I wasn’t completely helpless.

“Syd, me driving isn’t a guy thing. Well, maybe it’s a little bit of a guy thing, but it’s more of a control freak thing. I’m always the driver.”

That felt true. He’d driven Liam and me to dinner last night in Liam’s rental and then to the airport so Liam could catch his red eye back to Maine. We’d left the rental at the airport and Ubered back here.

At the restaurant, Wyatt stood in front of me like a bodyguard. Eyes on everyone, body tense like he was waiting for a threat. Like he’d take someone out if they made me the slightest bit uncomfortable.

It was overkill. But it was sweet overkill.

“Okay, but we can take turns,” I suggested. “It’s almost fourteen hours to Colorado. You’ll need a break.”

He took the keys from me and made his way toward the driver’s side. “Sure.”

He wasn’t planning on taking turns.

My husband liked hot sauce on his eggs and he liked to be in control.

Check and check.

We hopped in our seats. Our bags were in the back, including my old acoustic guitar and notebooks. I’d let Beatrice know the plan and she didn’t think it was the worst idea, to be away from the press. Especially now, since John had thrown gasoline on the fire.

“You okay?” Wyatt asked, glancing from me to the road and back again.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“When you’re stressed out you try and make yourself smaller,” he said, and I looked down to see that I was sitting curled up against the door. My knees tucked to my chest. I laughed.

“That’s pretty perceptive of you.”

“I’m a perceptive guy,” he said. At first I thought he was joking, but I realized he wasn’t. Then I realized he was right. He was perceptive. He saw me so clearly and he barely knew me. Everyone he came in contact with, he sized them up almost immediately and he wasn’t often wrong.