Page 40 of This Might Hurt

ANDREW

“Hello?” Grant sounds miserable over the speaker of Jude’s phone, like a working animal that got dragged away from its job and caged.

“It’s me. Is Hugh still alive?”

At the sound of my voice, he struggles to smooth his tone back into the comforting bass I grew up listening to, the one I thought was all-powerful. “Last I heard, barely. Are you alright? I emailed you the flight information.”

“I’m fine, thank you. Um, do you know the off-season staff schedule for the ranch?”

I can hear him trying to swallow his why. “I believe they come in on Tuesdays, so it should be empty.”

“Please get the security system taken down for maintenance for the next twelve hours.” Grant spends a lot of time with the security team, and no one is watching the place carefully, so I know I’m not asking the impossible.

“Are you going there?”

“Just to spend the night, and I don’t want anyone to know where I am.”

I thought he’d be conflicted, the first time I’ve asked him to do something unquestionably problematic, but he just sounds relieved to have a job again. “Consider it done. I’ll text the details to this number once you’re in the clear.”

“Thank you, Grant. I don’t—” There are words all clogged up in my throat that I can’t work out how to give him, something to do with how he and Carla are the only family I’ve ever had. My now permanent state of sleep-deprived panic is making me sentimental.

“Stop.” He interrupts my floundering gently. A second later he adds “sir”, in an almost comical rush, like he realizes he dared to speak over me. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow and explain everything.

” Once I’ve hung up, I input directions to the Montana compound and stick Jude’s phone in the dashboard mount.

He kept me occupied most of the drive by telling me to watch for bears and bison as we skirted Yellowstone National Park, but we didn’t see any.

Now I tuck my legs up to my chest, my heels propped on the edge of the seat, and doze with my forehead on my knees for the next hour.

I lift my head when my body recognizes the two wide left turns followed by a right and the rumble of a cattle guard for the cows we don’t keep on our fake ranch.

A glance at Jude’s phone shows a text from Grant with codes for the gate and door so I don’t have to use mine, and photo proof that the cameras are off.

Jude taps the brakes at the top of a low hill, the same spot I sat with Grant a few weeks ago, thinking I would never see the boy with the gun again.

Now we’re fucking married. I watch Jude’s face as he studies the sprawling fenced in acreage—all the pools, garages, and buildings with their west-facing windows sharply reflecting the late afternoon sun like poured gold.

“Cool.” He doesn’t sound enthused. “Which house is your family’s? ”

“They’re all ours. The whole thing.” The way he stares like it’s the most incomprehensible thing he’s ever seen constricts a tiny knot of shame in my belly.

“You should practice not gawking at everything like that before we get to New York.” It comes out meaner than I intended.

Ramona’s house shocked me in a bittersweet, longing kind of way.

There’s nothing longing about the way he’s examining the careless excesses of the Innes family.

“Am I pretending to be rich?” He props his chin on the steering wheel thoughtfully. We haven’t discussed this detail, but I did think about it.

“No, this isn’t some kind of performance.

I want to dress you well, but we’re not going to pretend you’re rich or poor or anything in between.

Functionally you’re just a name on a marriage certificate.

I just meant that you might not want to embarrass yourself tomorrow by walking around with your jaw on the floor. ”

“You make me feel so special,” he grumbles. The shame spikes again, and I bite back the urge to insist that it’s his fault if I’m unkind because he keeps finding all my cracks and clawing them open without my permission. And tonight, I feel made of cracks.

Instead I say, “We can find a hotel, if this isn’t acceptable to you.” Maybe I’m the one asking for an excuse to leave before the place gives me a panic attack.

“Is this where you came that night? After the river?”

I blink, caught off guard. “Yes.”

“Did they help you when you came back?” He reaches into his pocket for the cigarettes, then stops himself and braces his hands on the steering wheel. “Like, were they good to you?”

Something strangely like guilt rushes through me as I stare at him, like it’s my fault I needed something from my family they weren’t built to give. “That’s not how it works here,” I whisper, finally. “It’s just not. I’m used to it.”

Breathing out sharply, he scrubs a hand through his hair and studies the compound again.

“You’re not allowed to set any of it on fire,” I say quickly.

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I could feel it. I didn’t know what it was, but I had bad dreams that night and everything inside me hurt. Because I should have been here with you, and I wasn’t.”

I gawk at him with my mouth half open, like he threw a bucket of cold water in my face.

My throat feels tight, and there’s an awful squeezing in my chest. Throwing my door open, I stumble out into the sweet-smelling quiet, dust stirring around my shoes because apparently it didn’t rain up here.

“I’m going to walk down and put in the gate code. Follow me.”

Jude idles behind me as I input the code Grant gave me for the gate, a generic one not tied to any specific family member.

My fight or flight instinct stirs restlessly at the soft click-hum of the motor as the gate slides back.

Now that I’ve pulled myself together, I return to the passenger seat and direct him to park next to the big house.

Freshly pressure-washed concrete scuffs under my feet as I get out and turn in a slow circle.

I’ve never been here alone—no splashing of Archie doing laps in the pool or my mother’s online celebrity meditation coach announcing breathing patterns over the speaker on the back patio.

I stare up at the weatherproof camera mounted on the side of the house.

Maybe Grant messed up and someone is looking right back at me.

Jude comes around the car with his backpack on one shoulder and mine on the other as I fiddle with the lock on the side door.

It has biometrics for all of us, but I type in Grant’s security override.

Everything rushes out as the door swings open—the alien glow of the safety lights, the memories of that night, the eternal chill, and that strangely neutral smell of a clean, lifeless house.

My body rebels, but I ignore it and lead Jude down the hall to the lounge and kitchenette where Fuentes fixed my hand.

Jude turns in a slow circle, taking in the thirty foot high wall of glass, the second- and third-floor balconies that overlook the room, the dark exposed beams running along the ceiling like the ribs of some vast creature that swallowed us whole.

The lights in this place are always just right, as if by magic, so I don’t know where any of the switches are.

“The kitchen doesn’t have a stove,” he observes as I finally find the panel that lights up this room and the hall beyond.

“That’s essentially a snack bar. The main kitchen has three.

” This time I fight off the urge to say something cruel to him in return for making me feel like some kind of oligarch for having more than one kitchen.

Maybe I’d get one of my good person points back for that, if I weren’t hopelessly in the red at this point.

He prowls over to the back windows with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his boots crushing the pale carpet, while I pull a bottle of water from the fridge and sit at the counter. It’s freezing in here, but I can’t stomach the thought of calling Grant back to ask him how the heating works.

“Could we grill?” Jude asks unexpectedly, gesturing across the white travertine pool deck. “I think that giant silver thing out there is a grill.”

“It is.” I close my eyes and prop my head in my arms. “There might be some fresh food in the main kitchen, for workers and stuff, but not much.”

“Let’s go see.” The cold water bottle slides out of my fingers as he steals it and drinks half in one go. I don’t want to explore deeper, but I don’t want to be alone either, so I lead the way down the hall, through the cavernous main living space, and along a corridor to the kitchen.

Jude must be learning, because he pretends not to be shocked by the massive professional-grade appliances and gleaming stainless-steel prep surfaces.

As he digs through the surprisingly full fridge, I study the neat lineup of knives on a magnetic strip along the wall.

Maybe it’s my fault I don’t know how to use one.

No one would stop me if I tried to teach myself to cook, but it wouldn’t help anyone.

The staff would have to re-arrange their schedules and change their grocery lists to accommodate my whims, like the summer where my mother made everyone miserable because she wanted to try beekeeping but left the groundskeepers to do everything.

At the sound of my name, I glance over to see Jude watching me. “Can you find some plates and spices?”

I scan the million closed cabinets and drawers apprehensively.

“Maybe.” After six tries, I land on some black stoneware plates Colin brought back from Japan.

I hand one to Jude and search eight more cabinets for spices before giving up and grabbing some salt from the prep area.

He holds up his spoils—a vacuum-sealed cut of fish, one potato, a carton of cherry tomatoes, and my nemesis the bell pepper.

“Every vegan loves a slightly wrinkled potato with no seasoning, right?”

“That’s all we ate in the Middle Ages.”