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chapter seven

Jillian

“ W e need to talk.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

Meghan didn’t laugh at my joke. I kept one AirPod in as I typed, so I could half-listen to her while working on my notes for this goddamn breaking news report. Some cattle got loose on Persimmon Road, and a truck carrying a load of turkeys overturned trying to avoid hitting a cow.

Barnyard animals everywhere. What a calamity.

Chase was busy covering the city council meeting that evening, so this one was on me. I’d reported live from the scene, but the morning show would need an update. I stood at my kitchen counter to work on the report while my perogies boiled in a pot nearby. Xander would be here for dinner soon.

“No, Jill. Someone brought it to my attention that you were kinda, I don’t know… wincing in pain during your morning report?”

I slammed my finger down on the spacebar and stopped typing.

Something’s going on.

Because Meghan wasn’t the first person to ambush me about this that day.

Xander had also not-so-casually brought it up when he popped into the studio earlier.

He could barely look me in the eyes when he asked the real reason why I’d been popping so many ibuprofens lately, and I brushed it off and said I’d talk to him about it that night.

And now this?

“Okay, what’s going on? Who’s been talking to you and Xander about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t lie to me, Meg,” I said, picking up the tongs to flip over the sizzling asparagus spears in the pan beside the pierogies. I was literally juggling three pans at once: the pierogies, the asparagus, and skillet of caramelized onions and bacon. “Did someone say something to you guys?”

She huffed into the phone. I braced myself for her to say Marco was the one with the concerns, so I almost choked on my gum when she said, “Fine. Graham may have noticed.”

I clenched my eyes shut, feeling a twinge of embarrassment. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“No. He said you were pulling some Edward Cullen faces while delivering the news.”

“He did not say that.”

“I’m loosely paraphrasing.”

I sighed. “Damn it. I thought I was hiding it better.”

“Look, if you’re in that much pain, can you just talk to your doctor about it? What if there’s a really simple solution? They could write you a script and you could be done with this.”

There’d be no simple solution. They would either completely dismiss my concerns or put me through rounds of endless tests—tests that might lead to an answer I wasn’t ready to face. “I just don’t have time,” I lied.

“Graham would give you some time off to go to the doctor. I’ll make him.”

“And who’s going to do the morning show in my place?”

“Uh. Chase?” Meghan suggested, and we both laughed.

Chase might have to wear something besides his usual attire of a ragged t-shirt and torn-up jeans, and that would never fly.

He was strictly a field reporter, even acting as his own cameraman.

Suiting him up and plopping him behind the news desk would be awkward for everyone involved.

“I’m sure they can squeeze you in some afternoon. Promise me you’ll go. Please.”

I closed my laptop. “Okay,” I said, pausing to chew on my bottom lip. “I promise.”

Meghan wasn’t done badgering me, though. “Good. Quick question. Why are you keeping Xander in the dark on this? He seemed a little embarrassed that Graham knew and he didn’t. It was so f—”

“Kind of like how Abigail knew all about his woodworking skills and I didn’t?

” The words flew out of my mouth without warning.

My stomach flipped, and Meghan went silent.

“We just haven’t reached the stage where we tell each other everything.

We’re not like you and Chase. Or, you know, him and Abigail. ”

“I wondered if that bothered you on Friday night,” she said, lowering her voice. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think Abigail meant anything by it.”

I gasped. “I know! Please don’t think I was implying she had any malicious intent with that. I just—I just think…”

The words wouldn’t come out.

So Meghan said them.

“That Xander and Abigail have a super freaky untouchable bond, and it makes you feel like the third wheel in your own relationship?”

Damn, she was good. “Yeah. Something like that,” I said, poking at the perogies in the boiling water. My stove timer went off, and I opened the cabinet door for the strainer. “I need to go, or I’m going to drop my AirPods in boiling water. But thanks for giving me some tough love.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

After we hung up, I drained the perogies and tossed them into the skillet of onions and bacon, letting them soak up the buttery goodness. When I’d described this meal to Xander earlier, he’d texted back a simple, “holy shit.” I took that as a good sign.

He showed up right on time, letting himself in through the front door. I tried not to make a habit out of leaving my front door unlocked unless I knew someone was coming. “Damn, it smells good in here,” he said, setting his phone and keys down on my kitchen table.

“Does it?” I asked with a grin, flipping the last few pierogies in the pan. There was something satisfying about cooking for someone I cared about—not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

He came up behind me and put his arms around my waist as I finished up. “Mmm,” he said, peering over my shoulder at the food, resting his chin on me.

Searing pain instantly shot through my shoulder.

I sucked in a breath, my body tensing involuntarily as I twisted away, slipping out of his grasp like I’d just been burned. Xander blinked, confusion flashing across his face as I took a step to the side to put some space between us. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m just trying to cook.”

“Oh.” His brows pinched together, and his hands dropped to his sides. “Sorry.”

My stomach knotted up with guilt. I exhaled, reaching out to turn off the burners. “No, I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’ve just been really sensitive to pain lately. Sometimes even a light touch feels like…” I hesitated, gripping the tongs. “A knife.”

Xander studied my face, swallowing. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that bad?”

It was a fair question. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s hard to explain my pain, and it makes me sound crazy. I’d rather just not talk about it at all.”

He nodded like he understood, but his scowl remained.

I grabbed two plates from the cabinet and began plating our food, turning to him with one of the plates.

He didn’t take it. It was almost like he didn’t even notice I was trying to hand him something at all.

“Just feels like everyone knew but me. I mean, you even told Graham.”

I sat the plate down, and I took a deep breath. “Now you know how I felt Friday night when Abigail rattled on about your woodworking and carpentry skills.”

His gray-blue eyes locked on mine. “Jillian.”

Was I detecting the slightest bit of annoyance in his tone? I let out a heavy sigh, filling the second plate with pierogies, onions, and asparagus. “Let’s just eat.”

He made no move to reach for his plate. “Look. I’ve known Abigail nearly my whole life. She was around when my grandpa started teaching me that stuff. Hell, he taught her how to use a circular saw, too.” He stopped to grin, shaking his head. “Her mom was so pissed.”

The very fact that this was the first time in our conversation he’d smiled wasn’t lost on me. “Neat. But that’s not really what this is about.”

“Okay. What’s this about?”

“I just…” I sat both plates down on the kitchen table and turned back to him with my hands on my hips. “I wish there was something I knew about you that Abigail didn’t. Just one thing.”

Xander scratched his jaw before lowering his hand back to his side, shoving it in his pocket. “That’s going to be pretty tough.”

Maybe what I was asking was unfair. If they’d been close since preschool, why wouldn’t she know every detail about every facet of his life?

I shook my head, readying an apology for my jealous behavior as Xander twisted his body around, leaning against the counter with both of his hands in his pockets.

His gaze dropped to the floor before his eyes fixated on mine again, like he was weighing his next words carefully.

“Actually,” he said, pausing to clear his throat, “I can tell you something I’ve never shared with anyone.”

I sank into one of the kitchen chairs like I needed to brace myself.

“Okay,” I said, my heart picking up speed.

I was expecting a bombshell secret—like a crime he’d committed, a near-death experience, or something about his father, the one topic he always avoided.

I knew there was a lot to unpack there, and the longer I thought about it, the more I hoped he was finally ready to talk about him.

Instead, he shifted his weight, took a deep breath, and said, “I’ve been… writing a book. A novel.”

Well, that was certainly last on my list of guesses.

“You have?” I asked, struggling to keep my expression neutral.

He just nodded. I waited for him to follow up or give me a tiny detail, but he didn’t offer anything else.

The ball was in my court now. If I wanted details, I’d have to pull them out of him myself.

I felt a smile forming, feeling like I’d just gained access to a secret level of a video game.

I couldn’t believe I was the first person he trusted with this. “What’s it about?”

“It’s…” Xander scratched the back of his neck, staring at the olive-green rug beneath his feet. “It’s a thriller. It’s about an investigative journalist who solves a decades-old cold case in his small town, uncovering some political corruption while he’s at it.”

On the inside, I was screaming, my mind filling up with about a hundred more questions. But I didn’t want to make him regret sharing this with me, so I tried to play it cool. “That sounds incredible. Maybe a little autobiographical?”

“No.”

Right. Of course not. “How much have you written?”