The (Half) Truth

by Harper, Leddy

“Oh . . . well, that’s good. I was worried about her after the whole incident. But I’m happy to hear that it didn’t get her down. She’s too sweet to let something like that break her spirit.”

  I was out of my chair like my ass had caught fire. If the rumors caused by Tatum’s lies had made their way to my office, she would hear from me again, and it wouldn’t be to talk or to explain Vegas. “How did you hear about it?”

  “Charlie told me.” She seemed confused, as if she didn’t understand why I would be upset over my personal business being discussed behind my back. “He was so distraught when he came home Monday. He just feels so bad for her.”

  “Wait . . . how does your husband know?” Then I recalled Kelsey mentioning that the segment had filmed that day. “Oh, that’s right, the cooking show was Monday.”

  “I take it you didn’t watch the footage Charlie made for you?”

  It took me a second, but then I remembered Maryanne leaving a CD on my desk yesterday morning. I had taken it home, but by the time I’d made it through the front door, all I could think about was a shower and my bed. It more than likely still sat in the mail basket next to the front door with the stack of letters I’d taken inside.

  “No. I’m sorry. My family’s planning a big lunch party for her on Saturday. They’re going to tape it so we can all watch it together.”

  “Oh . . .” Her mouth formed a long O for a moment before she blinked her surprise away. “It won’t air.”

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe you should watch it for yourself when you get home.”

  “Why can’t you just tell me?”

  She took a deep breath, and as she let it out, heartache dimmed her eyes. “Because, Jason . . . if I do, you’ll panic and think it’s worse than it is. Trust me. Watch the clip and see for yourself.”

  “Worse than it is?” I was not excited with how high my voice got, though I couldn’t waste the time caring about the fact that I sounded more like my mother than a thirty-one-year-old man should.

  “It’s nothing, Jason. No one got hurt.”

  “Got hurt?” I was now on the other side of my desk, desperation acting like adrenaline pumping through my veins.

  “Yeah . . . no one did. Maybe you should call her.” She offered a meek smile and walked away.

  I didn’t care that I still had fifteen minutes left in my workday; I powered down my computer, grabbed my bag, and raced out of the office. Thankfully, no one questioned my hasty exit or attempted to stop me on my way out of the building. I managed to make the trip from my desk to my car in less than sixty seconds—normally, it took a solid two minutes. And before I had the key in the ignition, I had Tatum’s number pulled up on my phone.

  I pressed the green call button and waited for it to connect.

  Once it did, the ache in my chest grew bigger.

  The automated recording of her voice mail came on after only half a ring. Anger shredded my heart into pieces, and fear twisted my stomach into knots, but I couldn’t separate the two long enough to understand just what emotion I was left with.

  The second I walked through my front door, I rifled through the basket that sat on top of the entryway table until I found the disc Maryanne had given me yesterday.

  I grabbed my laptop from the top of my closet, set it on the bed, and changed my clothes while I waited for it to come to life. My heart hammered away as I slipped the CD into the drive, and then it threatened to quit beating altogether once the picture finally flickered to life.

  It was an unedited copy, so the beginning dragged on with the initial sound check and lighting adjustments. There were other people in the frame, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off Tatum. She looked so nervous, completely overwrought with fright.

  When the host, whose name I couldn’t remember no matter how many times it was said, asked Tatum about the ingredients she planned to use, she kept her head down, making it very difficult to understand her when she spoke. After she had to be corrected a couple of times, they started over.

  No one could say Tatum didn’t take direction well. She did exactly as she was told—looked right into the camera, smiled, and spoke with clear and concise words. However, her eyes were wide, her smile was faker than the host’s tits, and she sounded like a robot that needed new batteries. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought Charlie had given me a clip of a hostage situation.

  Tatum’s awkwardness aside, I didn’t understand why this wouldn’t air. With a little—okay, a lot—of editing, they could probably salvage enough footage to show something. It saddened me to think they’d decided to scrap the entire thing just because she wasn’t born to be in front of a camera.

  Unless she had freaked out and walked off the set.

  Knowing her, that was probably what happened.

  Ironically, I felt bad for the host—and not for the obvious reasons. Seeing the two women stand side by side, it was hard not to notice their vast physical differences. Tatum had to be a good five or six inches shorter, though the host had a solid ten to fifteen years on her. Then again, it could’ve been more; it was difficult to tell with the ninety-seven layers of spackle this woman wore on her face. And don’t get me started on her eyes. It appeared she’d used a cotton ball to apply the black lining her lashes and had then gone over it with a pencil eraser.

  I couldn’t help but think of those Instagram posts Jen used to show me of women trying to re-create sexy poses yet failing miserably. In this case, Tatum was the original, and the host was the poseur with the word fail stamped on her forehead.

  When I snapped out of my mental comparison of the two women, I realized they’d moved on to the actual cooking part of the segment. Considering I’d just lost track of time picking apart the host’s makeup, I had no clue what they were making, but whatever it was, Tatum picked up a plate of it. She turned toward the stove, and a split second later, I stopped breathing.

  The pan that sat on a burner burst into flames. Well, it was more like one giant flame. Chaos ensued around the set—the host screamed, Tatum froze, and by the sounds coming from behind the scenes, a pack of wild horses charged the kitchen.

  Suddenly, Tatum reacted to the fire in front of her.

  Reacted, not put it out.

  Still holding on to the plate, she dumped what I could only describe as chicken nuggets into the pan. She must’ve been under the impression that adding food would help—either that, or she figured the fire would cut down on the cooking time. But when that only increased the flames, as well as spread them, she moved on to plan B . . . throwing the plate at the pan.

  I had my face inches from my computer screen with my heart in my throat. I had no idea why no one had come in with an extinguisher yet. By law, there should’ve been one close by, and considering Tatum’s unpredictability, the host should’ve had one strapped to her back, pin pulled, ready at a moment’s notice.

  Panic consumed Tatum’s expression, and I was on the verge of a heart attack. Nothing good ever happened when her eyes became that wide. I’d seen it before—at the restaurant with a plate of chocolate cake being the first thought that came to mind. And the second she reached for something off the counter, I literally screamed, “Don’t do it!”

  Unfortunately, my plea didn’t travel back in time, because she picked up what appeared to be an oven mitt and tossed it onto the growing fire. The flames now covered the entire cooktop and hid her from view.

  Finally, someone rushed forward with their back to the camera. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than five seconds, but while I watched, helpless to do anything, it felt like a million times longer. A loud rush of air filled the speakers of my laptop as a white cloud consumed the screen.

  After several bursts of the extinguisher, it stopped, and the room became eerily silent. The camera continued to roll, yet I couldn’t make anything out beyond the smoke and dust. But then, several moments later, everything began to settle, and the picture cleared up some.

  The sight of Tatum had
always made me smile, though never like this. Seeing her behind the cooktop, covered in white like someone had thrown a bucket of baby powder at her, I grinned like a fool. The only parts of her that weren’t coated in the remnants of the extinguisher were two wide onyx eyes looking right at me in horror. And then the footage ended.

  While staring at the black screen, I allowed myself to find humor in yet another one of Tatum’s debacles. Too bad her TV career had blown up in her face before it had ever gotten started, because I might’ve actually tuned in every week just to see her antics.

  Watching the video and realizing she was okay should’ve calmed me down. Yet it didn’t. The only way I’d relax was if I heard her voice. However, calling her right now would be pointless. If she hadn’t answered less than an hour ago, I doubted she’d pick up if I tried again.

  Instead, I grabbed her notebook, exited out of the DVD player on my laptop, and passed the time by trying to make sense of her recipes. At nine o’clock on the dot, I tried calling her again.

  Only to be sent to her voice mail once more.

  24

  Jason

  Do everything; regret nothing.

  The first thing I noticed when I walked inside my aunt’s house was how quiet it was. If it hadn’t been for the cars in the driveway when I’d pulled up, I would’ve thought the party had been canceled and no one had bothered to let me know. But Mom had assured me they would celebrate with or without the segment airing.

  Apparently, Tatum had told everyone that the producers had pulled the plug due to an “issue while filming.” Granted, burning down the set was an issue while filming. I just wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told them the truth—I would’ve asked her myself, except she still hadn’t returned either my texts or my calls.

  The only reason I’d decided to come was because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all week. I couldn’t get the image of her horrified eyes out of my head, and when I slept, I dreamed of the words she had used to create her very own recipes. I figured if we had a chance to move past everything, it was now or never—and I hated the idea of never when it came to Tatum.

  When I set her gift on the kitchen counter, faint voices carried through the air around me. Finding the slider to the patio wide open, I moved closer, but just before stepping through the doorway, my feet cemented themselves in place.

  Everyone was on the dock. Nick sat on the edge with Connor in his lap, a fishing pole in their hands. Uncle Fred stayed near the grill with Lizzie on his shoulders. Aunt Diane stood in the yard on her phone—taking pictures, not making a call—and the other four were at a table that had been set up along the side, shaded by the neighbor’s massive mango tree. Marlena and Kelsey sat with their backs to me, while my mom and Tatum faced them.

  All I could do was stand there and stare at her.

  I’d seen Tatum in almost every light—first thing in the morning without a stitch of makeup; right after a long shift in front of a stove, hair matted to her forehead from the heat; all put together with her lips painted red. But I had to say, the way she looked right now . . . it wrecked me, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  The saying “She took my breath away” wasn’t even close.

  She didn’t need to take it from me.

  The way Tatum looked had me willing to bottle up every last breath I had and hand them over with a bow on top.

  That was the thought that wrecked me, because I’d never experienced anything like it before. Over the last sixteen years, I’d been around women who’d turned me on, made me stop at nothing to get them naked. If I didn’t succeed, I moved on to the next. If I did, I still moved on to the next—usually after succeeding a few more times. Either way, they’d never brought me to my knees.

  There had been other women I’d enjoyed being around. The kind who typically went with the flow. But again, they’d never stopped my world from spinning.

  Then there was Jen. She had started off as someone who’d offered the type of friendship I’d left behind at college. For the first time in my life, I was on my own, but Jen kept me from feeling like it. We had progressed into something more, and before I knew it, almost five years had passed. My first and only relationship had made it to the point where we’d talked about weddings and babies and a future. And in the blink of an eye, it had vanished.

  But the good times had never made my heart race.

  And the bad ones hadn’t caused it to cease beating.

  Now, watching Tatum as she joked with my mom, I noticed the biggest difference between her and everyone else. I’d always said she was unlike any other woman I’d ever met, though I’d chalked it up to her awkwardness and quirks. But as the sunlight crept between the branches behind her, it lit a halo around her head. And the sound of angels singing the chorus of a song I’d been deaf to blew past my ears, masking itself as the wind.

  Her dark-brown hair danced in the breeze, occasionally becoming trapped between her scarlet lips, and despite the canopy of shade above her, she squinted as if she stood directly beneath the sun. While she talked, her upturned eyes gave the impression they were smiling, giving her the appearance of being utterly happy, regardless of what words or tone came out of her mouth. And even though she wore a hint of makeup today, I had no doubt that the pink in her cheeks when she laughed hadn’t come from a beauty counter or the mid-September heat.

  Unbeknownst to me until this very moment, Tatum had managed to bring me to my knees, stop the earth from spinning, and reenergize my spirit. That completely terrified me, because if she’d done all that in only a couple of months, done what no other woman had ever come close to, that meant she was capable of extinguishing every beat of my heart.

  The kind of power she unknowingly had could be crippling.

  Lizzie squealed, catching my attention, and when I found her on Uncle Fred’s shoulders, I realized he’d caught me watching Tatum. At least it was him and not one of the others; he was probably the only family member I had who could keep his mouth closed. The irony of it all was he was the only one I wasn’t related to by blood.

  I recited my motto to myself and stepped outside to join the party. Somehow, I almost made it to the edge of the pool deck before anyone else saw me. And once Aunt Diane did, they all did. However, my eyes remained on one, and when she glanced up, I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to see the truth.

  Her eyes flashed wide, like two gemstones in the sun. Even though we were more than twenty feet apart, I knew she had stopped breathing, which was evident in the stillness of her chest. Though the way she remained unmoving, regarding me with her mouth slightly open, I couldn’t read her reaction. She was either scared, shocked, or overwhelmed, but I could relax a little, knowing she wasn’t angry.

  Aunt Diane hugged me first—after taking my picture, of course—followed by Marlena. Kelsey seemed to have gone back to her snotty ways, muttering, “I’m surprised you came” beneath her breath as she greeted me.

  With one arm over her shoulder, I returned her side hug. “I said I would.”

  “Technically, you said you couldn’t make any promises.” That was true; every time I’d been asked, which had been at least once a day since dinner at my mom’s on Monday, that had been my response.

  “Your point? As far as I’m concerned, that means yes, but don’t hold me to it.”

  “Oh, I took it as you’re too much of a coward to show your face.” Her smirk let me know she was teasing, yet I didn’t doubt for a second that a part of her had meant it.

  My mom stepped away from the table and kissed my cheek. To my surprise, she didn’t need to wipe anything off. When she pulled away, I noticed her makeup was subtle and classy. “I like the new look, Ma.”

  She beamed, clearly proud of herself, but then she turned her head to the side and admitted, “Tatum helped me.” It was like she knew I needed an excuse to give my attention to the woman I’d come here for.

  I tried to smile at Tatum, though I couldn’t be sure I s
ucceeded—partly because she kept her beautiful, tense expression set on me. Without any other obstacles in my way, I ambled to her and stopped at the corner of the table. She stood behind the seat my mom had vacated, her hand on the back of the chair as if she needed help steadying herself. Tentative, barely breathing, she moved only to tilt her head back to see my face.

  Fucking wrecked me.

  “Hey.” My voice couldn’t have been shredded any more if I had tried.

  “Hi,” she whispered, apprehension thick in that one word.

  “I’m sorry to hear about what happened with the show.”

  She shrugged and dropped her chin, glancing around the yard. I had no idea how much attention we had on us right now, nor did I care. Nothing else mattered in this moment, and I refused to let my family do anything—inadvertently or otherwise—to end it before I was ready.

  “How have you been?”

  Her eyes found mine again, though this time, they lacked the undeniable emotion from before, the emotion that told me I wasn’t in this alone. Now they were two impenetrable shields blocking me out.

  Regret nothing.

  I came, I saw her, and even though she’d turned me away, I had no regrets.

  This was what she wanted, and I had to respect that, much like she had given me the same courtesy over the last several weeks. So, I nodded and took a step back, offering her the space she wanted. But at the last second, right before I turned to walk away, I caught the slightest dip in her brows. I could’ve made it all up in my head, or I might have even misunderstood the meaning, but in the single fleeting twitch, I saw disappointment.

  I could’ve stood there all day and questioned it.

  Or I could’ve done something about it.

  “Fuck it,” I growled and cradled the sides of her head in my hands. She barely had enough time to gasp before I covered her mouth with mine, swallowing her surprise. It took her a moment to react, and nothing reassured me more than when she grabbed the sides of my shirt, pulled me closer, and kissed me back. And without a second thought, I lost myself in her.