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Then there’s a crash outside, and I hear Jacques hollering at someone, and the memory is snapped, going up like smoke on a pinched candlewick.

“Is that Jacques?” Michelle asks.

“Yeah, taking his anger out on some poor other contestant.” I grimace. I’d stepped in when he’d done that earlier, but Nancy had informed me when the cameras were rolling, he wasn’t my responsibility.

In other words, back off, this is good for TV.

There’s the sound of rustling on the other end of the line, then a thud and a curse under my sister’s breath. “Dammit, I can’t see anything.”

“Where are you?” I ask, checking the time. I can’t hide in my office forever. Even if I’m not supposed to stop Jacques on air, Neil asked me to calm him down between takes. “Riled up is good, storming off set, not so much,” he’d told me.

“Can’t you guess?” Michelle asks. “Our favorite hiding spot from Mom.”

I grin. “My closet. Of course.” We used to tuck ourselves in one of our closets when Mom had her work friends over to avoid being paraded out for them.

“It’s a lot harder to do as a full-sized adult,” Michelle confesses. “Plus, I can’t exactly hide in mine now that Mom made my room her craft emporium.”

I take a swig of coffee. “Guess we know who her favorite is.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I still talk to you.”

I laugh, standing up. I need to get back out there. Plus, we’ve managed to get through this whole call without me having to say anything about Eli. But despite the risk of her asking, I stay on the line a moment longer, growing serious when I say, “I miss you, Mich.”

“Me too,” she says. “So much. I’m sorry I’ve been consumed with life stuff.”

“I get it, Michelle.” Besides the business of being a mom of four, Michelle ran the restaurant I used to work in back in Jewel Lakes. Although she was the owner, and wisely hired someone else to manage it. Plus, her husband Will was mayor of the town they live in. “Your life is already insane, and now you’re taking Mom to London over Thanksgiving—I’m surprised you found time to call at all.”

“You’re right. I get a get-out-of-jail-free card for life for that.”

We love our mom dearly, but since she retired from her job, she’s turned all her energy on her three kids. That and whatever her craftdu jouris. Michelle’s taking the brunt of it given she’s the only one with a family—and she moved Mom and Dad to her town.

“So…Reese…”

I sense Michelle gearing up for a question that I can’t brush off, so I cut her off. “Gosh, look at the time. I better go, Mich.”

“Look at the time, seriously?”

“Sorry, that was weak. But I really do have to get back to work.”

“You can go in a minute,” Michelle says, like she’s the older sister. Which she kind of is in our relationship, having been married and widowed while I wasted a whole decade with a man who slowly eroded my life’s dreams without me even seeing it.

“Tell me what’s going on with you, Reese. You sound tired. But there’s something else, too.”

Sometimes it’s deeply annoying.

“Well the show is…intense.” As if to make my point, there’s another crash outside my office, and I hear Nancy shout “CUT!” again. I get up out of my chair as much to stall talking as to see what’s going on. But of course, all I see is the backs of crew members and TV lights. “No first aid kid,” someone yells. “Just a bonk.”

“Come on, Reese.”

I sigh, closing the door and leaning against the doorframe.

My stomach twists as the image of Eli under me the other night pops to mind. I squeeze my eyes shut—Michelle will see right through me.

“I’m seeing someone,” I say softly.

“Oh shit,” she exclaims. “You know, I knew that might be it. I’ve seen you on the video calls. You’re tired, yes, but you also look happier than I’ve seen you in a long time. And it’s different than that chipper put-on happiness you were wearing when you were living out here with me.”

I swallow. I can’t deny it. I am happy. And it scares the shit out of me.