Page 7 of Against All Odds (Ember Falls #3)

five

Violet

I stare at the screen of the phone, debating what to do.

Dylan and I have only communicated through our lawyers and a couple of his text messages, which I ignored.

This week I’ve been so busy with getting my lesson plans sorted, meeting all the students, and trying to get my house set up that I haven’t had time to even think about my cheating soon-to-be ex-asshat.

I’m not sure talking to him is the best idea, but I also have a feeling if he’s calling, there’s something I need to know.

Hell, it could be that he isn’t going to sign the papers and I’m going to have to allow Ana to kill him.

Tonight Everett is coming over, and I don’t want to be sitting at dinner thinking about Dylan.

I’d rather not ever think of him again, but that’s probably not going to happen.

“Hello, Dylan,” I say, answering on impulse.

“Violet.” I stay quiet, waiting for him to speak. “Right. How are you?”

I laugh once. “I’m great.”

“Good. I’m . . . glad. Truly.”

“What are you calling for?” I ask.

I’m fresh out of pleasantries. I don’t care how he is. I don’t care if he’s great. In fact, I’m just petty enough to hope that he’s miserable.

“I wanted to check on you.”

“Why?” I don’t believe him for a second.

“You are still my wife.”

Oh, that’s rich. “I have a lot of things I could say right now about me being your wife, but let’s not go there. I’m fine. Thanks for checking in. I have to go.”

“Wait!” he says quickly. “I called for another reason.”

I knew better.

“I have plans tonight so it would really be helpful if you could just tell me why you’re calling,” I say, glancing at the clock.

Everett will be here soon for dinner, and I want to double-check everything.

“You have plans?”

I sigh. “Yes, I have plans. I have a life here, or at least I’m building one. Dylan, just ...”

“Fine. Sorry. Listen, my new publicist thinks that I need to address the press.”

“New publicist?” He’s been with Catherine Cole for years. “When did you get a new one?”

“I fired Catherine after she lectured me and wasn’t helping. Things are really out of hand here, and we need to make a statement jointly and maybe some photos.”

I pull the phone down, staring at the screen, wondering ... is he serious? Did he just ask me to do a joint press conference with him?

“Why would I do that?” My voice rises in confusion.

“Because ... we should try to mitigate the press frenzy.”

“I don’t have a press-frenzy issue. You do.”

He sighs heavily. “Vi, I need you to help. If it keeps up like this, I could lose the role of a lifetime.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say. You cheated on me, Dylan.

For I don’t even know how long. You took me away for weeks, claiming you wanted us to reconnect, but you ignored me, and then I get back and find out all of it was a lie.

If you have a press or image issue, I suggest you ask your girlfriend for help. Now, if there’s?—”

“I’m going to release a statement.”

“Then release a statement.”

“It’s going to paint you poorly unless you come back for a few days and we can salvage this mess.”

I laugh once. “Dylan, I don’t have a mess. I don’t have a press issue. I don’t have a job issue. If you want to make some big statement, making me the problem, go ahead. It’s not like you haven’t detonated my life already.”

“You left.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I’m just saying that you ran off, making it look bad for both of us.”

He keeps saying that and I’m not even sure what I could do to get into his thick head that I don’t care about his publicity issues. I don’t care if he never works again. I don’t care if the press vilifies him or me or her. I just don’t care about any of it.

I sigh heavily, letting as much frustration out as I can in that moment. “You want to blame me and ... I can’t for the life of me understand where I hold the fault in your decisions, but there’s not a chance in hell that I’m coming back to California because of this.”

“I won’t sign the papers.”

“Then don’t. I’ll wait the six months and get my contested divorce. I’m sure Whitney will love that. She really handled our vacation well, didn’t she?”

Whitney is who leaked the photos of them. She didn’t like seeing the very staged photos of Dylan and me on vacation. Apparently she was texting him nonstop while we were away, and when she didn’t get what she wanted, she made the divorce happen the best way she could.

Whitney sounds like a real peach.

“Okay, fine, then I’ll sign the papers this week, but you should want to salvage this too.”

He really is delusional. “Sign the papers and I’ll consider it,” I lie.

Then I hang up, again taken aback by the absolute selfishness of the man I once loved.

I can do this.

I’m fine.

This isn’t a date. It’s dinner with a neighbor.

I look down at my jeans, tank, and long cardigan and nod. It’s casual. Totally casual.

Then why do I feel like my heart might beat right out of my chest?

I hear a car door close, take a few deep breaths, and smile as I walk to the front door, opening it before he can knock.

“Hey,” Everett says with a grin.

“Hey.”

“The benefits of living in a small town, you always hear when a car arrives.”

I smile and nod. “Very true.”

He hands me a bottle of wine. “Thank you for having me.”

I take it, grateful for something to hold on to. “I think you’re the one being thanked, so thanking me kind of negates the first part.”

He chuckles. “My bad.”

“You’re forgiven.”

Everett follows me in and lets out a small laugh. “This place is exactly like I remember.”

I smile. “Some of my favorite times were in this house. When Granny died, I knew I didn’t want to change anything. It’s the best decision I made to keep it frozen the way I remembered. Well, other than the lumpy seat cushions and the really uncomfortable bed. Otherwise, I love it all.”

When I think back on my life, this is where I was always happy.

Sure, it was a vacation of sorts, but there was more than that.

It was a place where I could just be who I was.

Granny never tried to mold me into what my parents wanted or force me to be something I wasn’t.

She was happy for me to wade through life, figuring out which way the waves were going to take me.

“Maybe upgrading the heating wouldn’t have been a bad choice.”

I laugh. “No, I’m already in the process of doing some small things, like the stove is ancient, and I’m not sure it’s actually close to the temperature it says it is.”

That was my lesson from yesterday. I am a nervous baker. When my life feels out of control, I can always rely on the chemistry and the oven to provide a consistent outcome. I put the batter in, take the baked goods out, and it’s edible.

I went grocery shopping after the heat was on, grabbed my supplies, and then had to run out to get a thermometer and realized the oven is about eighteen degrees off. As shitty as my day of experimenting was, I’m grateful I figured it out before I tried to make us dinner.

Lasagna wouldn’t exactly be one of those dishes I could just finish on the stove.

“I’m sure at your house in California you had top-of-the-line appliances.”

While I don’t think he means it with any form of judgment, I feel the condemnation in my chest.

The people of Ember Falls aren’t like the celebrities and wealthy people I spent time around. They don’t care about designer labels or what kind of car you drive. They care about people and helping your neighbor, not one-upping them.

“We did, but I don’t miss that.”

Everett leans against the counter. “You don’t?”

“I mean, I miss some stuff. Having a working oven was a plus.”

He laughs. “I’d imagine so. What else? There has to be some good stuff there.”

There was, for sure. I try to think of the one thing I miss the most since coming here.

I miss Ana and Eleanor, but ... oh, I know.

“I really loved this bakery that was down the street. It had the best pastries, and I swear they imported dough or water to make it taste so good. I used to go every day and the owners were so nice. They’d constantly add new things to the menu so I wouldn’t get bored of it. It was the best part of my day.”

“I can’t compete with that, but we do have cows.”

I snort a laugh. “That is something.”

Ember Falls also has him.

No, no, no, we are not going there. Uh-uh. Nope. This is dinner to thank him for literally saving me from the cold.

“Are you okay?” Everett asks.

I push out a deep breath and smile. “Of course. Are you hungry?”

“Famished.”

Everett helps me carry the bowls out to the dining room.

I take the seat across from him, and we pass the plates back and forth, adding different food items on it.

We laugh and catch up on small things, like how Hazel decided to open the store and how Miles ended up becoming the principal. For some reason, everything feels easy.

Maybe it’s the food. Maybe it’s the glass of wine, but the awkwardness is easing somewhat.

Everything is very surface level, and it’s been nice to just catch up.

Everett leans back, his arm resting on the chair next to him. “Can I ask some personal questions now?”

And my previous thought about how nice this was just went for a nosedive.

As much as I’d like to have avoided this, it really can’t go on forever. “If you must.”

“I can keep reading the tabloids if you’d rather.”

I groan and take a sip of wine. “No. Ask away, but for every question you ask, I get one back.”

“Fair enough. You met your husband in college?”

This is at least an easy one.

“I did. We met my senior year of college.”

“I see.”

God, maybe it wasn’t so easy. We had plans for when I was going to college, and I abandoned them and Everett. He deserves to know what happened and how I feel about it.

As much as tonight was a way to thank him for helping me with the fact that I didn’t have heat, it was also a way to open up the lines of communication and hopefully get some of this behind us.