Page 25 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

M eg was elbow-deep in five dozen cream puffs when her phone rang Monday afternoon. She felt it vibrating in her back pocket, and hustled to wipe the lemon cream filling from her fingers onto the edge of the bowl.

The phone buzzed again as she washed her hands quickly and gave them a haphazard dry on her apron. She fumbled the phone out of her pocket and swiped at the screen with a greasy finger.

Straight Shot Literary Agency.

A fleck of pastry cream made it look more like snot than shot and Meg wiped it off with her sleeve and tried again, her butter-slick finger slipping ineffectively off the iPhone screen.

Disappointment washed through her, but she pushed it aside. So what if it wasn’t Kyle? She’d been dodging his calls, unsure what to say now that they’d taken things to such an intimate level.

On her third try she managed to answer her agent’s call. “Hello?”

“Meg! How’s my favorite new client?”

She smiled and wondered if Nancy Neel said that to all the authors she represented, or just the ones who’d spent the last two weeks on The New York Times Bestsellers list.

“Assuming you mean me, I’m good.” Meg lifted the hem of her apron and wiped her forehead, belatedly remembering she’d cleaned her pastry bag on it earlier.

She glanced in the mirror over her sink, admiring the giant blob of lemon cream in the center of her forehead with a big strip of lemon peel that made her look like a pitiful unicorn.

She used her sleeve to wipe it away, grateful this wasn’t a video call. “I’m busy, but good,” she added.

“Excellent. Did you get those documents I sent over about German translation rights?”

“Yes. I haven’t had time to look at them yet, but as soon as I finish up this catering job, I’ll?—”

“That’s right, I forget you still have a job.” Nancy sounded almost amused by that. “Well, as soon as I start sending you royalty checks, it’ll be your call whether you want to keep that up.”

Meg picked up a cream puff and pried the top off, thinking about whether she’d ever want to give up catering entirely. “I love cooking,” she said. “And baking. And coming up with new recipes.”

“Of course you do. But now’s the time to dream big. More book deals, maybe a regular column or even your own television show.”

“Television?” The word echoed in Meg’s ears, and she set down the cream puff to grip the edge of the counter. “Sure. That sounds good. All of it.”

God, she sounded like an idiot. Nancy had to know Meg was in way over her head when it came to dreams of fame and fortune, but at least she was polite enough to treat her like a real professional instead of a clueless kid.

“The sky’s the limit, Meg.” Nancy cleared her throat. “We just have one tiny issue to deal with.”

“Right,” Meg said, and felt herself crash back down to reality. “You mean the lawsuit?”

“I mean the lawsuit. You’ve spoken with the attorney I asked you to meet with this morning?”

Meg nodded, which was dumb, since Nancy couldn’t see her. “Yes. Franklin. He seemed very nice.”

“We don’t want him to be nice. We want him to be an animal in the courtroom.” She seemed to pause then, probably recognizing a court battle was the last thing Meg wanted. “If it comes to that, of course.”

“Right,” Meg said. “I talked with him quite a bit about verbal agreements and collaborative work and what might hold up in court and?—”

The words got hung up in her throat, and Meg felt her hands start to shake at the thought of this whole thing blowing up in such a dramatically legal fashion. Maybe it wouldn’t need to escalate that far.

“The Midland family’s not backing down, Meg.”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “I know.”

“You know I signed you as a client with the understanding that this work was yours alone,” Nancy said, and Meg braced herself for a lecture on how she’d misrepresented herself.

But instead, Nancy just laughed. “And as far as I’m concerned, The Food You Love cookbook is yours alone. We just need to find a way to prove that.”

“Okay,” Meg said, opening her eyes and feeling like she’d dodged a bullet somehow.

“Look, it would be helpful if you could dig through your records from that period when your ex-fiancé agreed to take those photos,” she said. “Anything that shows his state of mind at the time or the kinds of things you discussed before he started clicking away.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“The more detail, the better. Old emails, maybe love notes he might have left you—anything that talks about his intention to take those photos as a favor to you as your fiancé and not as a collaborator who expected a portion of the proceeds.”

“Right,” Meg said, hearing a glum note in her own voice. There were no love notes. There never had been, which hadn’t bothered her before. Meg cleared her throat. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“It’ll all work out,” Nancy said. “Try not to lose too much sleep over it.”

“All right,” Meg said, wanting desperately to believe her.

“In the meantime, you keep thinking about what your next book proposal might look like.”

“I’ve been giving it some thought,” Meg said. “I have a few ideas, and I can email you some things I’m kicking around.”

“Perfect!” A blare of car horns sounded in the background, and Meg pictured her agent walking down some New York City street, maybe catching a subway or staring at a billboard in Times Square or doing something equally exotic instead of standing in her kitchen with a smear of pastry filling on her forehead.

“Okay, I have to run,” Nancy said. “We can talk about this more when I’m in town later this week.”

“This week?” Meg frowned. “Wait, you mean you’re coming to Portland?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’m flying to LA for a conference, and I changed my flights so I can stop off and meet you. I’ll be there Thursday. Here, I’ll send you the flight information now.”

“Oh,” Meg said, dazzled by the idea of meeting her literary agent in person. Hell, she was still dazzled that she even had a literary agent.

“All right, I sent it. Check your inbox and tell me when you’re free to meet. Oh, and Meg?”

“Yes?”

“Try not to worry too much about the lawsuit.”

“Okay,” Meg said, then clicked off the phone, wishing like hell it were that easy.

Kyle had half expected his mother to be annoyed that he’d chosen to bring his dog as his lunch date.

But as he watched his mom slip a piece of bacon under the table, it occurred to him he may not have given his mother enough credit.

“Is that good?” Sylvia murmured, patting the little black and brown dog on the head as Bindi took a gentle bite of the proffered treat.

A bespectacled waiter strolled out to their table and refilled their water glasses from a tall pitcher, then stooped down to replenish Bindi’s water dish.

With a quick adjustment to the umbrella shielding them from the unseasonable burst of fall sunshine, the waiter turned and retreated back inside.

“The service here is always so nice,” Kyle’s mother said as she broke off another piece of bacon from her BLT and slipped it under the table. Bindi perked up her ears and cocked her head to one side, then licked Sylvia’s fingers.

“Good girl, Bin,” his mother cooed while Kyle took a bite of his club sandwich. He was still chewing when Sylvia looked back up at him. “So how are you holding up?” she asked.

Kyle finished chewing and swallowed, the bread making a thick lump in his throat. “Okay, I guess. How about you?”

He watched his mother’s eyes grow misty, and she looked away, wiping her hands on a napkin.

“I’m still just in shock.” Sylvia pulled a bottle of hand sanitizer from her purse and dumped some into her hand, while Kyle took a gulp of his water and tried to force the bread lump down.

“It’ll be three weeks tomorrow. Did you know that? ”

He nodded and took another sip of water. “It doesn’t seem real. Friends keep sending me sympathy emails and Facebook messages and I keep thinking there has to be some mistake. He can’t really be gone.”

His mother nodded and wiped one eye with the edge of her wrist. “I know. I find myself getting irrationally angry at people who’ve sent sympathy cards or called to express their condolences. Like maybe if they didn’t do those things, he might still be here.”

Kyle set down his water glass and reached for his mother’s hand. It felt small and bony and he wondered how he’d missed the fact that his mom was old enough to be a grandmother.

“Kyle?”

He looked up at the sound of a familiar voice and saw Cara walking toward their table. She wore a pale blue dress and an expression of mild shock. As she approached the table, she laid one hand over her heart and the other on Kyle’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I heard about Matt. I honestly don’t know what to say.” She turned and looked at Kyle’s mom. “Sylvia. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.”

“Thank you, dear.” Sylvia attempted a smile, but the gesture fell flat. She lifted her hand out from under Kyle’s and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin even though she hadn’t eaten anything at all.

Cara took her hand off his shoulder and glanced from mother to son, probably at a loss for what to say next. Kyle could relate. He had no earthly idea what to say to people anymore, especially the well wishers with tears in their eyes and carefully-rehearsed words of condolence.

That’s what he loved about being with Meg. He could just be himself without worrying he’d say the wrong thing or deviate from the script on how the brother of the deceased was supposed to behave.

Looking up at his ex-girlfriend now, he tried to think of something to say. Bindi thumped her tail against his shoe, but didn’t come out from under the table. It wasn’t like her to be shy with new people—especially of the female variety—but it seemed everyone was a little out of sorts.

“I was actually thinking of you the other day, Kyle,” Cara said.

“Oh?”