“How does Grace know about this?”
“It started at The Retreat weeks ago when I was working the bar.”
Melissa laughed. “I always find it amusing when you work in a position to learn the ins and outs so well. I guess that is why I can understand why this actor wants to get in my head. Though he might find some menopause in there.”
She was roaring over her mother’s comment. “That’s awesome. I hope it comes to that and you get to make that comment.”
“You would find humor in it,” her mother said. “Tell me more about this guy.”
“His name is Warren Showers. Or better known as The War Show.”
“I know who Warren Showers is,” her mother said. “You’ve gone on a few dates with an extremely popular MVP Super Bowl quarterback? My daughter, who once didn’t leave her house for seven weeks?”
“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be in the house that long. And you came to visit twice.”
“Only because I was worried you hadn’t left and wanted to make sure you weren’t hiding something from us.”
“You all check up on me daily, you know that,” she said.
She always got a text a day. If it wasn’t from her mother, it was her father. Welfare checks they called them. Just to make sure she was alive and breathing.
Sometimes, they’d leave her alone if she noticed her mother was watching her on one of her live broadcasts with her fans.
No one was intrusive, just caring.
“We have to,” her mother said. “With the amount of caffeine you drink, I worry you’d spin around the house.”
“It’s not all coffee,” she said. “I just stock up so I don’t have to leave. My pantry could be a mini-mart.”
“Don’t remind me,” her mother said. “Go back to Warren.”
She filled her mother in on the night in the casino and how he came back to The Retreat last week looking for her.
“Wasn’t that just the sweetest thing?”
“I think so,” his mother said. “I know you do too. You’re romantic even when you’re murdering people.”
“There has to be a balance of love and hate in my stories. You know that.”
“I do,” Melissa said. “You spent a few days with him and he’s back home now?”
“He is,” she said. “I told him my rules. Well, my lifestyle. It’s completely different from his.”
Her mother snorted. “No one lives like you, Emma.”
“I know,” she said, grinning proudly. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”
“Only to you,” her mother said. “I hope you’re going to at least try with him. It sounds like you really like him.”
“I do like him a lot,” she said. “He makes the perfect book boyfriend and I’ve got him for real in my life.”
Emma heard the sigh loud and clear. “You can’t live in your written world. You can escape to it and you do. I worry you do it too much and miss out on what is going on around you.”
She rolled her eyes. She’d heard this lecture enough.
“Now I need to sit down and put my feet up,” she said. “Let me grab a pillow in case I fall asleep during this rerun.”
“Don’t be a little brat,” her mother said. “I’m serious. You said he lives in Brookline. That is about an hour from the port without traffic. Then riding the ferry over. You’re in the middle of the island. It could easily be a four hour round trip on a good day catching departure times if you’re lucky.”
