Nina answered the phone, “What’s wrong?”
Sullivan repeated the story. She could feel Nina’s attentionvibrating through the phone.
“So they’re threatening to take half your house, if you don’t denounce Kia,” Nina summed up when Sullivan was done.
Done except for one part.
“I think they did something to Kia. She left to do some fair in Grants Pass.” Sullivan sprang off the sofa, then began pacing. She couldn’t sit still. She had to do something, but there was nothing to do. “And I said I’d go with her, and she turned me down.”
“Because?”
“She said it was because she’d be working the whole time, and she didn’t think Grants Pass was interracial lesbian couple friendly.”
When she said it like that, it didn’t sound like Kia had cast her out of the book of love. Sullivan looked out at the trees, trying to calm herself. She waited for Nina to point out that new couples always agonized over little things like this, and it would probably take months before they actually broke each other’s hearts.
“Mega Eats definitely got to her,” Nina said. “We’re close to trial, and that’s time to offer last-minute deals. If they offered her a deal, it probably involves destroying you and Kia coming out of it without as much grief as they’d give her otherwise. At least that’s what they’ll tell her. The deal will be ugly, and it’ll be irresistible. Brace yourself. They’ll make it an offer she can’t refuse.”
“I was hoping you’d say I was overreacting.” Sullivan wanted to cry, but she needed to focus on what Nina was saying.
“Kia is crazy about you, and Grants Pass isn’tthatbad. You can rent a whole ranch for two thousand a night. She’s either racked with guilt at what she’s going to do to you, or Mega Eats told her to leave you alone.”
“You don’t think she was just… telling the truth?”
Nina sighed as though Sullivan had said everything on the internet was true.
“Everyone lies when they’re desperate.”
Did they? How could Kia throw away everything they had? But how could Kia throw away her dreams for a woman she’d only reconnected with a few weeks ago?
“What should I do?”
“Take the deal,” Nina said matter-of-factly.
“What?! No! I’m not going to say our marriage is a fraud we cooked up to stop Mega Eats from getting the Bois.”
“But that’s exactly what it is. I mean, even if you do say Kia tricked you into this, Kia’s attorney can still argue that you loved each other. You just couldn’t handle the stress of the lawsuit, and you broke her heart—and yours—by leaving. He could argue that Mega Eats coerced you to lie and say it was a fake marriage on the stand. That’s not a strong argument, but it’s an argument.”
“What do you meanher attorney?”
“I’m withdrawing representation.”
“Kia and I are in it together.”
It hadn’t felt that way when Kia left for Grants Pass. Disaster scenarios crashed in Sullivan’s mind.
“I’ll call her,” Nina said. “And tell her I’m dropping her.”
“Before you even know if she’ll take the deal?”
“Your interests have diverged. I like her. Opal’s right. She’s fab. But you’reyou. And saving your ass is the hill I’ll die on.”
Sullivan had good friends. She was lucky.
“But I might have to bury Kia under that hill.”
Sullivan lowered her voice. “I can’t betray her.”
“You can. You don’t have to perjure yourself. If you simply tell the court exactly what happened.”
