“Jesus, Olls, she wasn’t trying to ruin it,” I say, instinctively protective. “She was probably just trying to find a way for us—”

I stop, turning to look at Oliver’s giant shit-eating grin.

Groaning, I say, “Go fuck yourself, Aussie.”

Chapter FIFTEEN

Harlow

I WAKE UP TUESDAY and immediately know I’ve gotten my period, which of course brings a huge wave of relief . . . which of course makes me pissed-off all over again that Finn just hopped in his truck and drove north, leaving the mess between us behind.

One of the things I appreciated most about Finn was the plain assumption he seemed to always have that he sees things through with work, friends, and family. Apparently, that didn’t apply to the fight he had with the girl he’d married for twelve hours, loved for a day, and potentially knocked up.

But remembering that makes it clear why I appreciated that about him: because it’s the way I was raised, too. Take care of your own. Don’t leave loose strings. Clean up your messes. And, as my father has told me countless times, “Worrying is not preparation.”

So I drive to my parents’ house at the break of dawn to check in, reconnect, or, as Dad would probably say, be a meddling worrywart.

Dad is already up, eating cereal and staring out the window in his typical pre-coffee zombie zone, so I jog upstairs and crawl into bed with Mom. I don’t want to get so wrapped up in my own internal drama that I forget what she’s going through and that, at the end of the day every day, she’s still a mom who needs cuddles.

She hasn’t lost her hair yet, but I already mourn it. I inherited my father’s olive skin, but my mother’s auburn hair, and hers spills out over her pillowcase, just as long and full as it was when I was little. Mom’s trademark during the peak of her career was her hair. Once she even did a shampoo commercial, which Bellamy and I love to give her endless shit about because there was a lot of shine and hair flipping.

“Morning, Tulip,” she sleepy-mumbles.

“Morning, Pantene.”

She giggles, rolling to press her face into her pillow. “You’re never going to let me live that down.”

“Nope.”

“That commercial paid for the—”

“The camera that Dad used to film Caged,” I finish for her. “Which got him lined up at Universal for Willow Rush, for which he won his first Oscar. I know. I’m just being a menace.”

But there’s the rub. Mom’s work paid for Dad’s work, which moved our family forward, and nowhere in there did pride come into play, even though Dad is one of the most prideful men I’ve ever known. Mom came from a rich family in Pasadena. Dad came from a poor single-mother household in Spain. He never cared that his career took off because of the money and connections Madeline Vega made first. Once he’d convinced the love of his life to marry him, only three things mattered to my dad: that my mother took his name, that he could make her happy, and that they both got to do what they loved for a living.

“Why are boys so stupid?” I ask.

She laughs. “I’ve literally never heard you sound upset over a guy. I was worried.”

“Worried I was into girls?”

“No,” she says, laughing harder now. “That would have been fine. I was worried you were a cold-blooded man-eater.”

“Dad’s a tough act to follow,” I explain, pressing my face into her hair. Beneath the scent of her shampoo and face cream, she smells the slightest bit different—not bad, but . . . different—a result of the chemo and all the other things they’re currently doing to her body. It’s not like I go even an hour without thinking about it, but it hits me in this moment like a physical blow, this reminder that my mom is sick and my world is different than it was just two months ago. It makes me miss Finn and the strength he provided so acutely, that for a flash, I can’t breathe. “It was hard to take anyone seriously before now.”

“Before Finn, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

She rolls to face me. “What happened?”

I tell her—vaguely—about the hooking up, about my need for distraction, about how he was too distracting. I tell her about the real feelings, the I love you’s. She already knows about the potential deal with Salvatore, but apparently she doesn’t know how it unfolded.

“Sweetie,” she says, putting her warm hand on my cheek. “Your heart is always in the right place. But a partnership always starts at the beginning. I did the commercial to help Dad, but we decided that I would do that together.”

“I understand that Finn was upset that I didn’t loop him in,” I say, “but I still don’t understand why he couldn’t have stepped back and realized it was a good thing, or at least had a discussion with me about it. It isn’t like there’s a contract with Sal that has been drafted. He’s just interested. Finn flew off the handle.”

“What do you think Dad would have done if I’d come home from the Pantene shoot and handed him a check, saying, ‘Go get your camera, babe’?”

I roll my face into the pillow and groan. “Dammit.”

“What are we ‘dammiting’?” Dad asks from the doorway, lifting his mug to his lips to sip his coffee.

“Your daughter is learning relationship rules,” Mom says.

He snorts. “Finally.”

“Are you two done giving me crap?” I ask, climbing out of bed in a half-feigned huff. “I am very busy and have important things to do.”

“You work today?” Dad calls to me as I stomp down the stairs. I can hear from his tone he doesn’t think I am.

I pause on the third step, shooting Dad a dirty look he can’t see. “No!” I yell back.

“Call Finn!” Dad shouts at me down the stairs. “I like him!”

THE PROBLEM IS, I don’t want to call Finn. I want to drive to Canada, kick him in the nuts, and then drive home. He’s acting like a giant baby, and leaving town the way he did showed his ass. I’m tempted to mail him a care package with a plastic halibut, a copy of Salvatore’s latest film on DVD, and a box of tampons.

I officially leave my internship at NBC, and I swear no one will even notice I’m gone, or if they do, the narrative will be Hollywood Child Can’t Hack Being Coffee Girl. Salvatore sets up an office for me in his Del Mar building, and when I promise him I’ll be the best coffee girl he’s ever had, he laughs and tells me that’s great, but I’ll probably be up at the Los Angeles offices with him at least three days a week so someone else can handle coffee duty.