Thinking it through? As much as I hated to admit it, my dad’s words earlier made sense. Now wasn’t the best time for a baby. Was Manning having second thoughts, too? I turned, expecting to see Abby bawling in his arms and exasperation on his face. Instead, she slept soundly. His eyes were still glued to her as he held her against his chest.
I’d never seen Manning so gentle. So lost. He rarely let his guard down in public or took his eyes off what was happening around him—a side effect of his time in jail. He was a natural at this, probably more so than I would be. Then again, he’d done it before. He’d been old enough when his sister was born to help raise her.
“I think it’s safe to say he wants one,” Kara added.
A lump formed in my throat. “He does.”
11
Kara and I were still standing at a high-top table with our half-finished dinners, watching Manning with her baby, when Val strode over waving a plastic champagne flute at us.
“Who are we gossiping about?” she asked, then gasped as her eyes landed on Manning. “Look at him. He’s in heaven.”
“All right,” I said, turning forward again. I could’ve stood and stared at him the rest of the night, memorizing every breath he held, the way he hunched over the baby, warning others off. That was why I had to look away. “Let’s not make a spectacle of him.”
“Oh my God,” my mom squealed behind me. “Lake, are you seeing this?”
“I saw, Mom,” I said as she walked up. I checked over my shoulder, but Manning still hadn’t noticed he was drawing an audience. “Leave him alone or you might spook him.”
“He’s just so sweet.” She nudged me. “Meant to have a baby of his own in his arms.”
I turned to Val. She was an easy target, and it probably wasn’t fair to take aim, but I’d need big guns to get everyone off this subject. “You’ve been avoiding me lately. Why?”
My plan worked. Everyone in the group turned to look at Val.
“What?” she asked. “How can I be avoiding you while standing in front of you?”
“Normally, you’re up my butt about everything from my relationship to my job to what I ate for dinner. Lately, you’ve been quiet on all fronts.”
“What’s left to say?” she asked, motioning around the yard. “You have it all figured out.”
“I don’t buy it. Where there’s no drama, you’ll invent it. You do that for a living.” Val was always working on some kind of script. She’d recently directed her third short film and it’d been picked up by a couple smaller festivals. I narrowed my eyes at her. “It has to be a guy. You’re seeing someone, and you don’t want me to know about it.”
She wagged her champagne at me. “It could be a woman, according to your sister.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Leave her alone, honey,” Mom said. “Maybe it’s an ex and they want some privacy.”
“Julian?” I asked myself, shaking my head. “No. Not unless you had a lobotomy. Although, if he moved back from Peru or wherever—”
“Portugal, and no, it’s not him.” She tugged up her strapless dress as it sagged. “It’s not anyone.”
“It’s not?” I asked. “Swear on Gus Van Sant?”
“Do you even know who he is?”
“One of the directors you always talk about.”
“Don’t make me swear on genius filmmakers.” She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this tonight.”
I got the acute feeling we were being watched, so I looked over Val’s shoulder. Ten feet away, Corbin ate cake, pretending not to listen. “Why are you spying?” I asked him.
Val looked over her shoulder, and muttered what sounded like “fuck” before she tipped back her head and finished off her champagne.
“I wasn’t,” he said, swaggering over in his normal Corbin way—confident but humble, a combination only he could pull off. “Just trying to enjoy my cake.”
Val’s jaw dropped. “How many slices have you had?”
“Only three.”
“You had a bag of M&M’s on the way over here.”
He raised his arms in exasperation. “Who are you, the dessert police?”
She laughed, shoving his arm. “If you think you’ll be tall and skinny forever, you’re in for a rude surprise.”
Their easy banter wasn’t unusual, but what tipped me off was the way Val blushed at Corbin’s flirtatious smile.
“You guys drove up here together?” I asked.
Her mirth vanished as if she’d just remembered I was standing there. “It made the most sense,” she said—or more like recited. “We both live in L.A., so Corbin picked me up on the way from Malibu. It really would’ve been silly to drive separately. With gas prices what they are these days—”
“Take it down a notch,” Corbin said out of the side of his mouth. “Overboard.”
I narrowed my eyes at them, recalling the way her expression had softened while smiling at Corbin during the ceremony. “Are you two sleeping together?”