Page 50 of Father Knows Best (A Family Affair #1)

thirty

. . .

avery

The Secret

“You sure? You’re all comfy and food is on the way,” Roberta says, taking a sip from my Diet Coke.

I glance at my watch, knowing where Sutton is and what he’s up to, I realize this may not be a quick visit, and I don’t feel like sitting home alone with my thoughts.

Sushi and Real Housewives only go so far.

“Positive. Just let me change my clothes?” I walk backward toward the staircase while showcasing my jammies. “I know this is a look, but I think leggings and a sweatshirt could be better. I’ll grab the keys when I’m up there.”

She waves me off, settling into the barstool, finishing my drink while focused on her phone. “Go, I’m just gonna tell the buyer we’re about twenty minutes out.”

Upstairs, after locating the envelope in the safe with the extra set of keys, I toss it onto the bed and pull on a pair of leggings. Adding one of Sutton’s hoodies–which quite actually turns me on because I love his smell so much–I slip into some Birkenstocks, grab the envelope and head down.

Roberta is still on her phone, this time, texting. She looks up when I flick off the light over the sink. “Ready?”

She nods. “Yeah. They’re going to meet us at the house. They wanna make sure the keys work, and they have something for me.”

“Sounds good. You wanna drive two cars? That way you don’t have to come back and drop me off when we’re done?”

She tucks a long piece of dark hair back into her carefully styled updo, using one of her long, French manicured nails. “No way, come with me and I’ll drive you back. What else do I have to do?”

I wiggle my brows. “No hot dates?”

She pulls open the door, allowing me to exit to the back drive first. “I would take a regular date at this point. I’m not even asking for hot anymore. Just normal.”

“A lot of weirdos out there?” I ask as we walk toward her car. She clicks her remote and the lights flash, the doors unlocking for us. I settle into the passenger seat as she walks around the front, then joins me inside.

“The last business executive I went out with turned out to be lying about being a business executive,” she says, twisting the key in the ignition.

“I looked him up on LinkedIn. He told me he was corporate finance for Bank of America, but his LinkedIn said he was corporate marketing for Ikea. When I asked him, he admitted he sells hotdogs at the bodega on Mason Street.” She flips her blinker on as she pulls out of the private drive, onto the main road.

“He borrowed the suit he wore to dinner from his grandpa. I’m not even kidding. ”

I can’t help but laugh, and Roberta does, too.

“That’s not even the worst of it,” she tells me, guiding the car into downtown traffic not more than two minutes later.

San Francisco is so strange that way—you can be tucked into a luxurious home on a hill one moment, and in the street next to businesses and city life another moment.

I love it. The dichotomy of two beautiful and fulfilling lifestyles, one private and romantic, the other vibrant and loud.

I think of Geo and Sutton, and how they’re that same dichotomy, and how the metaphor spans powerfully along many aspects of my life.

I love the huge unstaged mansions, seeing their raw potential and exploring them when they’re bare and empty, at their lowest. And I love filling them with beautiful things, and revisiting them when they’ve changed from space to home. Both versions, to me, are beautiful.

After hearing about a man who peed his pants during dinner, and another who couldn’t remember her name by the end of the date, we arrive at the property, a burgundy Rolls Royce parked on the curb.

“Well, I’m sorry the dating scene is so harsh. Once you stop looking, you’ll find him,” I tell her, popping open my door.

She opens her door, and we each have one leg out. “Says the woman married to Sutton Mercer.”

I can’t help but smile just hearing his name in that context, where it’s passively suggested that he is simply the gold standard. “I wasn’t looking for anyone when I met him, though.”

We get out and close our doors, and Roberta links her arm with mine, still wearing her heels. “Birks were smart,” she says, glancing down at the custom cobblestone drive.

“Yeah, well, they don’t really go with your outfit.” She holds onto me as we make our way toward the front doors, finding them open, the clients having a conversation in the foyer.

“Roberta, we’re so sorry,” the woman—wearing a fur coat, an actual fur coat—says, diamonds glittering from her wrist and ears.

Roberta passes the envelope to the man she’s with–an older gentleman with a combover, wearing a three-piece suit and shiny dress shoes.

He reaches into the envelope and fishes the keys out, holding up one finger.

Closing the door, he uses the key to lock and unlock it, proving that these are indeed the correct keys. “That’s perfect! Just great!” the man says to Roberta after opening the front door again. “Thank you so much. This is Kitty’s dream home.”

We exchange a few pleasantries before saying goodbye, and the couple–who insisted Roberta bring the spare keys tonight, after hours–gets into their fancy car and drives off.

Roberta, arm still looped through mine, walks carefully on the cobblestones back to her car. “Millionaires are so illogical. You buy a multi-million dollar home but then… don’t want to pay to get it rekeyed?”

I shake my head, laughing. “Unnecessary expense,” I tease her, and she tips her head back, moonlight spilling over us as she steps out from beneath a large birch, a few feet from the car.

“Oh yes,” she laughs, “why have it rekeyed when we can have the agent running all over town to bring a spare set we’ll never us–”

Just a foot from Roberta’s car, her high heels lose the battle against the cobblestones, her heel wedging tightly between a filled spot in the ground. She loses her balance, and her purse flies through the air, her piercing scream making my lungs seize.

“Roberta!” I shout helplessly as she tips backward. At the last minute, I reach for her, and she does the same, only, I don’t prevent her from falling.

I instead fall with her.

And the front of my Birkenstock is the exact width of the gap between the stones underneath me, and my foot gets pinched immovably on the way down. I have just enough seconds to realize I’m about to splat, so I brace my hands and close my eyes.

It’s not the light tumble against the stone that hurts.

It’s my foot.

No, my ankle.

Laughing, Roberta turns her head to face me, both of us on our backs on the ground, me with one leg bent, since I can’t move my foot. “Oh Jesus, I’m glad no one was here to see that!” she says, her chest bouncing with her laughter.

I laugh a little until – “Oh my god!” I screech when out of nowhere, pain hits.

So much pain. Twisty, achy, stabbing pain running loops around my ankle and my shin.

“My ankle! Oh my god! My ankle!” I lift my head from the ground, but can’t see my foot from how I’m positioned.

“Roberta, my foot is stuck. I think my ankle–”

She sits up, nodding her head, eyes wide. “Let me just look, okay?” I watch her face as she twists her gaze, peering down at my foot. Expressionless, she simply says, “Something’s definitely not right.”

“Oh no.”

I dig my phone from my pocket, but discover that I must’ve landed on it. The screen is shattered and dark, and the button on the side to turn it on does not work. Roberta opens the passenger door of her car, and kicks off her heels for better footing as she loops her arms beneath my arm pits.

“Okay, use your good foot if you can, I just need you to leverage your weight enough for me to get you two feet over, okay?” she says, then, on her count, she lifts me.

We’re both grunting as she bears half my weight, me the other half, on one foot.

She nudges me toward the open door and I hop twice before she’s helping me put my hurt foot into the car.

“I can hardly move it,” I tell her, panic clinging to my voice. Pain sears up my leg and down my foot, and– “oh my god, Roberta, I can’t move my toes!”

She tosses her purse into the backseat, eyes wide. “It’s fine. I’m sure that’s your body’s response to the injury. It’s shutting down to prevent further pain.”

I shake my head, sweat bubbling up at my temples from the raw searing pain. “I think that’s your stomach with food poisoning.”

We blink at one another for a split second before she shakes her head, waving off any of our knowledge.

“We aren’t doctors, okay? Watching Grey’s and medical TikToks does not make us qualified to get you so freaked out.

I’m gonna close the door and then I’m gonna take you to the ER.

And people who have gone to school for years will decide if you’re gonna lose your toes, okay? ”

She closes the door and rushes around the front of the car. I never thought I was going to lose my toes, and I’m not prone to being a panicked person but all of the sudden, I’m hot and sweaty and overwhelmed with the urge to be sick.

Roberta slams her door closed, and reaches behind her to dig out her phone.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I ask her, rolling the window down now that the car is started. I suck in a lungful of bay air, letting it soothe me as much as I can. I reach into the center console and sip on a bottle of water that’s probably been there too long, but it’s better than nothing.

“Calling Sutton back. He’s going to likely kill me for this,” she says, but I grab her phone from her hand.

“Please just get us there. I’ll call him—” I start to promise I’ll contact him, but a biting pain grabs hold, and her phone falls to my lap as my hands go to my knee. “Oh my god,” I breathe as she navigates out of the private neighborhood, toward Zuckerberg hospital, which is nearest.

“What? What’s wrong?" She asks, splitting her focus between me and the somewhat quiet city streets.