I walk them back inside and clean up in the bathroom as Sam and Shell make us some sandwiches. I wait for the adrenaline to seep out of me like sweat, and then I go upstairs and change my shirt, pulling on yet another plain white t-shirt that came out of the same four-pack as the one I just took off.
Fuck him and his fancy clothes.
At least I earned what I have.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I get a text from Katie halfway through lunch and I feel the disappointment in Shelly’s face before I even look at her. “You have to go?” she asks from across the table, her mouth still full of the roast beef sandwich.
I force a smile. “Yeah, but I’ll be back soon.” I get up from the table and squeeze Sam’s shoulder as I walk over to Shelly and bend down to let her kiss my cheek.
“You always say that, but you leave for days.”
“I gotta work, baby. You know I’d rather be here with you, right?”
She puffs up her lip and pouts. But she nods. She knows the drill.
“I’ll call ya later, OK, Sam? If he comes back—”
“I know, Fletch. Don’t worry. I called the guardhouse and told them not to let him in again.”
I let out a sigh and a little bit of the tension I’ve been wearing all week slides down my shoulders.
“Thanks for understanding.”
She gives me a weak smile and I figure that’s all she’s got right now, so I take it and make my way to the front of the house.
It’s a spectacular house. It’s not my accomplishment, so I’ve never had any reason to be proud of it. But I do love it. And I love that Shelly is growing up here. Just like me and Walker, only without the rivalry.
I don’t know why my brother hated me. First child syndrome? Jealousy of the new baby? But it doesn’t make much sense. How much jealousy is a one-year-old capable of anyway?
We are sixteen months apart in age. A fact that definitely contributed to the demise of my mother’s social life, and then later, her interest in life. She’s not even dead, like my dad. Just cut out of the family for lack of ambition after he passed.
I guess I can’t blame her. I see first-hand what having one kid does to Sam. Imagining her with two little ones that close in age is enough to make me cringe. It’s nothing against Sam at all. It’s just a lot of work taking care of one infant, let alone two. I know. I’ve been there.
So I can cut my mom some slack. My dad was more like Walker than me. Transient would be a good word to describe him. Ask any kid if that’s a good quality in a father and even an eight-year-old like Shells will tell you no.
I imagine her thinking that of me as I drive south along the lakeshore. It’s late afternoon now. I didn’t even get to stay an hour before I got called away. Does Shelly think I’m transient because I stay down in South Tahoe most nights?
I hope not. I do my best.
I lose myself in thought as the miles pass and the minutes tick by. I barely see the beauty of the landscape around me anymore. Tahoe is part of me. I don’t leave often. And the fact that Walker knew about my trips to New York and LA has me unsettled.
Does he know who I am?
He might. It’s not like I’ve been super-secretive about any of it. I just figured no one much cared.
But apparently someone does. And it figures it would be Walker. I imagine all the reasons why he came back. Money tops the list. But I don’t owe him shit and he’s not getting one dime out of me.
Sam is second on the list. And that’s the more realistic one, considering that the outfit he was wearing today must’ve cost him about five grand alone. He’s not out of money yet.
I try to imagine a scenario where she’d choose him over me and come up short. Sam would never do that. Never. She’s the most loyal person I’ve ever met.
But… she could. She could still love him.
And if she does, Fletch, then she does. You can’t change the way people feel about each other.
And that line of thought brings me back to Tiffy just as I pull onto Lake Parkway and wind my way past the golf course towards the Landslide, their bright copper towers gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. Blinding, almost. The perfect metaphor to describe what goes on inside.
Name your poison—gambling, drugs, stripping, sex—you can get it inside. Those guys at the tables tell themselves it’s their lucky day. They snort coke in the bathroom and stuff tips in the bras of the cocktail waitresses. Hell, I tell myself that shit too. It’s my lucky day every night I go out on stage and come back with a pile of money.
I pull up to the valet and leave my delusions in the backseat when I get out. It’s a job, Fletcher. Nothing more.
But Tiffy didn’t feel like a job last night. Tiffy felt like a possibility.
Just your delusional mind, trying to justify why you’re not a no-good piece of shit.
Whatever.
I stop by the front desk and smile at Kristen. She’s not too bright, but she tries hard to please and she always smiles. I like her for those reasons alone. “Hey, Kristen, you got a package for me?”
“Oh, yeah, hey, Fletch. One sec.” She finishes typing on her keyboard and then slips behind the partition that separates the front desk from the office. She appears again, barely a minute later, and hands me a thin box with my name on it.
“Thanks, babe. Oh, hey,” I say, turning back to her. “Have you seen Tiffy today?”
“Earlier,” she says, going back to typing on her keyboard. “Maybe a few hours ago?” She looks up and gives me a smile. “Not since then.”
I nod. “OK, well, thanks.” I head off for the elevators, barely registering her answer of, “No problem,” and push the button when I get there, anxious to see what’s in the box Katie left.
It can’t be good. Well, it can, in a way. But ultimately, everything about this request I had her do for me will turn to shit.
I tap my foot as I wait for the elevator to take me up to fifteen, and then get out and find my keycard in my back pocket as I walk down the hall. When I get to the door, I pass it over the lock and the light flashes green at me.
I push the door open.
Tiffy Preston is sitting on my couch with a stack of papers in her hand.
My mind races as I figure out what might be on those papers. “What the fuck are you doing in my room?”
“Your room?” She laughs. “This is the hotel’s room. And I’m the legal representative of the hotel. So this room, Fletcher Novak, belongs to me. You don’t even pay for it.”
“You better have a damn good explanation for this, Tiffy. I’m not even joking. And those papers in your hands, they had better belong to you, or I’m going to be one pissed-off guy.”
“You think you have the right to be pissed off? Ha!” She looks down at the papers in her hand and begins reading. “‘Dear Sexy Man’”—she snorts—“‘I have a problem with a girl. She’s rich and I’m not. She comes from a very prominent family and I work for her father. It’s difficult to relate to her, and I’m sure she feels the same way about me. But there is something there that makes me want to try harder. What can I do to close this money gap? Signed, Rich Man, Poor Man.’” She shakes the letter in her hand. “What is this?” Her voice rises a little at the end of that sentence, making me cringe. “Why do you have these letters?” She flips through the pile, dozens of them in her hands. “I’ve read them all, Fletcher. The one from Self-Loathing in Saratoga where the guy complains about how his girlfriend has such a low opinion of herself, she can’t see that he really loves her? What is that?”
I clear my throat, unwilling to say nothing, but not sure how I can soften the blow. In the end, I decide I can’t. So I just tell it like it is. “I’ve been using our conversations to write the letters.”