Page 148 of Everything After

“When they’re free. I have nothing on the calendar right now, neither do you,” she replied while she got comfortable on the bed, and I handed Charlie to her.

“Alright, I’ll call… Rick,” I decided. “I’m going to get you a drink while you’re breastfeeding. I’ll be right back.” While I ran down the stairs, I pulled out my cell phone and called Rick’s number.

“Alfie,” Rick muttered flatly when he answered.

“Rick,” I said in the same deadpan way he’d greeted me. I opened the fridge and took a bottle of water out.

“Christ, is Lily okay?” he asked when I hadn’t said anything else.

I stopped when I realized he sounded alarmed. “Yeah, Lily’s fine… as is Charlie our son.”

“Fuck me, she had the baby already?” he asked, sounding excited now.

“Yeah… just over a week ago now,” I admitted. When I was met with radio silence, I suspected he felt offended, so I sighed. “Lily just needed some time.”

“A week? She needed time, and now she suddenly doesn’t?” Rick queried, sounding offended we hadn’t told him sooner.

“Don’t be like that. If it hadn’t been for Lennie?—”

“I’m not Lennie,” he snapped. “She’s my friend too,” he muttered.

“I know. Look, it was her idea not to announce it just yet. She had Jack here to visit?—”

“Ah, Golden Boy. That must have pissed you off, having him around. Was he at the birth too? Did he cut the cord?”

I sighed. His response was no more than I deserved since Rick had been left in the dark. “Actually, he and Mya were great. They helped us get settled. Now that we are, Lily asked me to invite y’all to dinner.”

“I know who set y’all up to that influencer,” Rick stated.

“Who?” I asked, surprised because my legal team had been trying for months to find out which one of our friends had broken our confidence.

“Sienna.”

“Sienna?” I screeched in disbelief.

“Yup. She and Cody started seeing each other… casual-like, after your party. She’d heard or seen… I don’t know which, but she tried to coax Cody into expanding the context of what had gone down between y’all. To his credit, Cody said nothing.”

“Get to the point,” I ground out.

“Sienna contacted that influencer guy by DM after she saw him talk up another blind item piece on TikTok. She figured he’d help her get to the truth. She didn’t want to have something with Cody if there was some secret history between him and Lily.”

“What the actual fuck,” I spat.

“I said the same thing,” he said, chuckling. “I thought she was your friend.”

“So did I.”

“Since then, there’s been all kinds of fuckery going on with XrAid. Lennie and Cody are at each other’s throats. Lennie’s blaming Cody for Lily walking. Cody’s blaming Lennie for how he reacted to Lily’s pregnancy. It’s a hot mess. The band’s in disarray, dude. They put out the album with a female backing singer singing all Lily’s parts. The door isn’t closed for her with the band, you hear what I’m saying?”

“Are you coming to dinner?” I asked, not willing to comment on anything band related he’d said, until I’d relayed all the information to Lily.

“I got Tuesday, Friday and Sunday free with the others, any of those suit you?”

“Friday sounds perfect,” I remarked.

“Alright then, we’ll be there… 6:30 p.m., right before nightfall, okay?”

“Yeah, sounds good. Talk to you then.”