“I’m gonna stop you and say it’s extremely weird that he’s texting with my teenage brother.”
“It’s not like that. We’ve been messaging about you mostly, but also about his project, and he’s been really helping me.”
“Helping you how?”
Max looks flustered. “Just school stuff. That’s not—”
“Are you still having problems? Max, you didn’t tell me that.”
He shakes his head quickly. “It’s fine, Blair. Baptist has been really helpful and he’s been patient and really awesome. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done without him the last month. But please, just—” He takes a deep breath and steadies himself, glaring at me. “He’s afraid you hate him, but I keep telling him you don’t.”
“I do hate him, Max.”
He glares at me. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I told him I’m pregnant with his baby and you know what his response was? He ran away and disappeared for a month. Also, he started texting with my little brother, which I still think is weird.”
“You don’t understand. He’s doing all this for you.”
“For me?” I laugh because this is so insane I can barely understand it. “Max, what thehellis he doingfor me? He disappeared! He ran away! I told him I’m pregnant and his reaction was to get up and drive off and drop off the face of the freaking earth. How is that for me again?”
“I know you love him, Blair. Don’t pretend like you don’t. Just go talk to him, please.”
“Idon’tlove him.” I take a deep, calming breath, and remind myself that I’m talking to a teenage boy that doesn’t know anything about complicated adult relationships. I mean, I don’t really either, but still. I don’t love Baptist. I can keep telling myself that, over and over again, and maybe it’ll be true. “Please stop texting with Baptist. And if you don’t, at least stop texting about me. I’m done with him.”
“You’re making a mistake,” he says softly. “He’s sorry. Not just sorry, he’s doing something about it. You really should go see.”
“I’m not interested.” I turn back to the stove. The food is beginning to burn so I push it around and something wet drips down onto the pan and sizzles, and oh, great, I’m crying again, because why not. As if today hasn’t been bad enough already, I’m literally leaking tears into dinner.
“Just look at this, okay?” Max thrusts his phone toward me. “Look, Blair. You’ll understand.”
I don’t want to look. If I look, it means the part of me desperate to find out something about Baptist wins, and if I start down that path, I know I’ll never turn away. But I glance to the side and it’s not what I’m expecting.
Slowly, I turn and take the phone.
It’s the interior of a theater. The stage is empty. The seats look like they’ve been redone. The molding around the walls and ceiling has been refinished and painted. There are ladders and drop cloths and building materials all around, like someone’s been doing serious work in that place, but it’s a theater, with lights and a curtain and everything, and it’s beautiful.
It’s absolutelystunning.
“Go see him,” Max says. “Please. Just go talk to him. You’re ready.”
And I suddenly know where Baptist has been hiding for the last month.
Chapter26
Baptist
The first thing I did was drink.
After leaving the bar, I foundanotherbar, and began to drink.
I drank, and drank, until I was too fucked up and shitfaced to think straight.
Then, in the morning, I woke up and knew I’d made the worst mistake of my life, that I was a lowlife piece of shit that walked out on the woman he loves at the most vulnerable point in her existence, and despised myself for it so deeply.
I made a call. Then another call. And another. I scraped together all my cash. I took out a loan from a bank. I got my financing together, drove out to the Crawford mansion, sat down across from Magnus himself, and gave him a big fat check.
The real work began after that.