Do Your Worst(88)

Her mom covered her face with her hand, then took a long sip of her coffee before she said, “Thanks, kid.

“You know what I’ve realized? It didn’t matter in the end if I chose curse breaking or not.” She lowered the mug. “I used to read her journal when you were at school or asleep. Looking for a way to be close to her. Looking for advice. And I realized, all those pages of reflection and advice, all the cross-outs and footnotes. Gran didn’t care in the end if either of us decided to follow in her footsteps. She wanted us to know her. And she wanted us to believe in our ability to change things, to help people.”

In that moment, staring at her mom’s face, still slightly puffy from sleep, Riley knew the answer to a question she had never asked. Did you ever worry that you made the wrong choice, sending him away?

There was never a choice. The right person didn’t make you choose.

“I miss you,” she told her mom. “I miss Gran too.”

“She’d be so fucking proud of you, kid.” Her mom beamed. “Almost as proud as me.”

Riley started to cry, a big noisy sob into her hand. She had to get up and grab tissues from the bathroom. Had to put her mom on mute while she blew her nose like a trumpet.

“I’m kind of floundering at the moment,” she admitted.

Now both of their faces were puffy on the screen.

“I used to worry about failing at curse breaking a normal, reasonable amount, but now my personal life—this man I really care about, that I want to figure out a future with—is involved, and for the first time it’s like I have a partner.”

Clark and breaking the curse. Two things she wanted that had become hopelessly entangled.

“And now all of a sudden, I’m not in total control anymore. We have to trust each other. He’s there up close for every mistake. And it sucks because I want to impress him. As shallow as that sounds.”

“Sounds like love.”

“I’ve never had more to lose.” It was frustrating. Terrifying. And part of her did desperately want her mom to step in and somehow make everything better.

“To your credit, you’ve never shied away from a situation that demanded a leap of faith, but in some ways, when it comes to finding a partner, that’s the easy part. There’s no time to think. For better or worse it’s over quickly. But if you want to make love last, you have to take smaller steps, match your pace to someone else’s well enough that you can hold their hand.”

“What if you do all that, you match their pace, but it still doesn’t work out?”

“Then it doesn’t work out.”

“Okay,” Riley said, frustrated, “well, what if that hurts like hell?”

“Then it hurts like hell.”

Fuck. Riley wrapped her arms around her thighs. “Things were simpler—worse, but simpler—when I thought we were cursed to die alone.”

“Well, you know what Gran always said.” Her mom took another sip of coffee. “You’re cursed as long as you believe you’re cursed.”





Chapter Twenty-Five


All it took was a quick call to his father’s assistant to find that Alfie hadn’t gone far. He’d booked a room in Inverness. Had stayed waiting in the wings, ready to give Clark a good lecture as his career, once again, took a hit.

At the hotel, when he told the desk clerk he was visiting Alfie Edgeware, the man offered to send him up along with a complimentary tea service.

Normally, Clark got anxious before seeing his dad. His belly filling with the kind of jittery pre-exam nerves where you tried to remember what you knew, to keep your mind sharp, ready to respond in a way that showed you to your best advantage.

He didn’t feel like that now. Instead, an odd calm settled over him. Like his center of gravity had shifted, stabilized.

Riley was right. He knew what he needed to do.

Alfie’s suite was twice as large as Clark’s camper and included an abundance of tacky gold accents. As Clark held the door, the hotel server shuffled forward to settle a laden tray on the table in front of his father, who sat reading next to the window. Only after Clark had tipped the man and seen him out did Alfie fold his newspaper over one of the velvet arms of the reading chair he occupied and look up.

“I was expecting you sooner.”

“Funny. I just received your summons.” Without waiting for an invitation, Clark settled himself in the opposite chair. “Don’t you think we’re all getting a little old to be involving public institutions in our family squabbling?”

“I would have ordered you off the site directly if I’d thought you’d listen.” His father helped himself to a butter biscuit. “You should thank me for handling the matter discreetly before the HES found out you were taking your trousers down on their dime.”

“Given the circumstances to which you’re referring, I think you’ll agree discretion is no longer my primary motivation.”

His father tugged at the sleeves of his neatly pressed dress shirt, undoing the cuffs and folding them back as if to imply an ease that didn’t exist in the rest of his suddenly tense posture. He might have expected Clark to show up here today, but not like this.

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” Clark leaned forward to pour the tea from the handsome china set. “First, you’re going to apologize for treating me like a child or someone who works for you—since I am neither.”