Jericho Parr was sitting at his desk in his hotel suite at Newcastle Inn and Spa, staring at the spreadsheets that were still bleeding money on his computer screen.
Checking out of the hotel and short-term leasing an apartment would be the financially prudent thing to do, but every time he tried to pack up his clothes, he found a trinket or blouse that Tiffany had forgotten, and then he didn’t move from the only place they’d been together.
He knew he had to move eventually, but he didn’t have to yet.
So he was standing over that spreadsheet, glaring at it and trying to make the numbers turn black with just the sheer force of his will, when his room service breakfast arrived.
The waitstaff who delivered it was Tiffany’s cousin, again. “Thanks, Asia. Just on the coffee table is fine.”
“Of course, Mr. Parr.” Asia settled the tray on the coffee table and poured out his coffee. “So Tiffany came back to her parents’ house yesterday.”
The floor rocked under Jericho’s feet, even though he was pretty sure Connecticut did not have many earthquakes.
He frowned. “Is her leg okay?”
Asia nodded. “As far as I know, she’s fine. Her coach told her to come home for a week and rest before final preparations for her big tournament during the first week of September.”
Jericho went back to his spreadsheets. “As long as she’s okay, that’s all that matters. Thank you for bringing breakfast.”
“Don’t you want to see her?”
The numbers on the computer screen smeared as his eyes focused somewhere beyond them. “I don’t think she wants to see me.”
“And why do you say that?”
Jericho sighed, not wanting to rehash their breakup at six-thirty in the morning. “She made it pretty clear, and she was probably right.”
“Have you been in touch with her?” Asia asked him.
Was this interrogation actually Tiffany’s family questioning him as to whose fault their breakup was? The Master Sergeant was probably glad to see the last of Jericho, anyway. “I tried texting her a few times, mostly apologies. She didn’t answer, and she didn’t tell me she was coming back to town.” A thought wormed its way into Jericho’s head about who Asia might be asking on behalf of. “Did she ask you about me?”
Asia shrugged.
Jericho closed the computer and turned his chair to face Tiffany’s cousin. “Did she ask you about me?”
She flipped her hand toward the window like she was flinging away something stupid he’d said. “At least three times a week and often every day, but she asked without asking, if you know what I mean.”
This must be one of those woman things because Jericho was clueless. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Asia sighed at him. “She asked how the golf club was doing, and she asked what was being done to the golf club, and she asked whether you were still around, and she asked how many breakfasts you were ordering. And she asked whether you were golfing and what you were scoring. She asked how your shoulder was.”
“My shoulder’s been fine for years.”
“Yeah, but she couldn’t ask me how you were doing because then I’d know.”
Jericho watched Asia, wondering if this was a setup somehow. Maybe Tiffany’s Marine father had decided to kill Jericho anyway and was trying to get him alone in the forest somewhere to do the deed.
And yet, hope lightened his soul so much that he nearly floated out of his desk chair. “Are you sure she wants to see me?”
“Jericho Parr, I am Tiffany’s cousin. We’re besties, she’s my sis, and we’re fam. We were baptized together, we went through all of school together, and I held her hair back the first time she got drunk and threw it all up. I know everything about that girl. I know things about that girl that she doesn’t know about herself, and she wants to see you, even if she doesn’t know it yet.”
And yet, Jericho did not want to talk to Tiffany under her father’s steely-eyed gaze. “I think her father might try to kill me.”
“Oh, yeah. Master Sergeant Jones will definitely try to kill you. How about Imani and I get her over to Newcastle Golf Club so you two can talk?”
Jericho walked over to the coffee table, opened his wallet, and started throwing hundred-dollar bills onto the tip plate on the tray. “Tell me when to stop.”
Asia watched the paper money settle on the tray. “You can’t buy me with your money, but I’ll take it anyway. Three more.”