Page 103 of The Summer Show
“We’re high up, so don’t look over the edge if you can help it.”
“I don’t want you up here.”
“Well, I am. And I’m going to get you back down, somehow. I haven’t figured out the details yet, but I will.” The rope inched backward. Progress. “How do you think they know about your problem with heights?”
I didn’t want to say fear. That wasn’t helpful right now.
“Guessing they used a private investigator to do some digging.”
“Harsh and intrusive, but also clever.” I kept my tone rabbit-fluffy and soft. “Hey, guess what? I got to use a firehose. That was fun.”
The tension in his shoulders ratcheted another notch. His arms and hands went with them.
“Relax,” I said, swatting his hands.
“Did you save the books?”
“Some of them, but I’m not sure they were worth saving. I know, that’s surprising coming from me, but they were ancient textbooks that had pretty much come to the end of their lifecycle. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t thrilled about them burning, but they’re already been reincarnated in new, updated editions.” The rope budged some more. “That’s why you sent me away, wasn’t it?”
He said nothing. From the back I could see his jaw tense and release, tense and release.
No problem. I had words enough for both of us, and I intended to use them all while I fumbled with the rope. My jabbering would keep his mind off the fact that we were I-don’t-know-how-many feet in the air.
“Some evil genius decided that because we were supposed to be the final two contestants, that they’d double up on our events and use our media-fabricated romance against us for the purpose of increasing their bottom line. Except I had an asthma attack and wound up in the hospital, throwing the show’s plans into disarray. Somehow you knew the big plan in advance, so you tried to preemptively save me from having to watch a bunch of books burn. You knew how it would affect me.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“But I am,” I said gently. “You know why?”
“Because you’re stubborn.”
My hands stilled on the rope. “I’m not stubborn at all.” Determined, yes, but not stubborn. “But I have feelings for you—big, important feelings—and I couldn’t stay down there while you were up here, alone.”
Before I could add another word, he yanked his hands apart and the ropes fell away. He pushed himself up onto his feet, then pitched the ropes over the side of the platform.,
“You wanted to save me?”
“I …” I squared my shoulders, dragged my eyes up to his, struggled not to drown in their warmth. “Yes. I mean, I haven’t exactly succeeded yet, though. We’re still stuck up here.”
He shook his head slowly, his gaze falling to my mouth. “You don’t know … Jesus, Kathleen. You started saving me the moment you paid for your plane ticket, and you’ve been saving me ever since. The man I was that day on the plane … he was broken. Then you sat in my row with your books and that beautiful mouth and you changed my whole world. I’m not the man I was before—I’m on my way to being better than him, because of you.” Shoving his hand through his hair, he let out a ragged breath. “I got on that plane, certain that it would fall out of the sky halfway across the Atlantic. And then you started reading.”
“You popped a pill and fell asleep on my shoulder.”
His lips quirked. “Best sleep I’d had in months.” He pulled back slightly. Not physically. More of a mental or emotional retreat. “I need to tell you something.”
I steeled myself for what was coming next and hoped it wasn’t a secret wife and baby. “Okay …”
“While you were in the hospital, I located your mother and made her pack up her crap and leave. Told her that I’d row her out to sea and dump her overboard, without a single camera around to record her demise if she didn’t go.”
“I feel like I should high-five you right now.”
“There’s more. On the drive to Athens, your mother bragged that she had given Mairi everything she needed for the last episode. She told them about burning your books. She made an agreement with them that they would include her in the episode for providing them with information.”
His confession knocked the wind out of me, even though Ana had already spilled some of the beans and I’d guessed the rest. But to hear it? To actually have Nick say the words, that my mother tried to monetize my childhood trauma and use my pain to boost her own celebrity status … well, it felt the way I imagined butter felt when someone used a hot knife to hack through it.
My own mother.
I knew she was terrible, but this was beyond. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was both inevitable and predictable. The moment she’d heard I was a contestant on the show, she had been searching for an angle.