“Yes.”
“Even if it’s your cousin?”
“Especially if.”
Rola veered toward the Route 17 exit. “You could sleep at my place tonight if you want. I have great internet.”
“I’m good.”
Ten minutes later, she put on her blinkers and pulled onto the shoulder in a pitch-black area. Wilde kissed her cheek, got out, and disappeared into the woods. There was nothing more to be done tonight. He would go back to his Ecocapsule and get some sleep. He was about a hundred yards from it when his phone buzzed. It was a text from Laila:
Laila: Come over.
Wilde typed back a reply: Did you talk to Matthew?
Laila: Losing it.
Wilde: What?
Laila: As in, If I have to text you ‘Come Over’ twice, I must be ‘Losing It.’
He smiled in the dark and started in the direction of Laila’s backyard. He didn’t really worry about Darryl. That was her concern, not his. He didn’t worry about doing the right thing by Laila by staying away or any of that because, really, how patronizing would that be to Laila? He was transparent with her, and she understood the situation. Who was he to “rescue” her from making her own decisions, even when he questioned the wisdom of them?
Nice rationalization.
Laila met him at the back door. Matthew wasn’t home. They headed straight upstairs. Wilde stripped down and stepped into the shower. Laila joined him. At seven in the morning, after the longest stretch of sleep he’d had in eons, Wilde blinked his eyes open and saw Laila sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out the window into the woods off the backyard. He stared at her profile and said nothing.
Without turning toward him, Laila said, “We will have to talk about this.”
“Okay.”
“But not today. I still need to figure out a few things.”
Wilde sat up. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” Laila faced him full-on, and when she did, he felt the thud in his chest. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
He didn’t. Not really. Some people like to talk things out. It helps them find solutions to problems. For Wilde, it was the opposite. He found that he often learned more by keeping it internal, letting the pressure build until the answers rose to the top. To mix metaphors, when he started talking things out, it felt like a balloon losing air.
Still, he understood the value in bouncing off another human being, especially one as insightful as Laila, not to mention the fact that he could see it would bring her some measure of joy or satisfaction. He told her what he could about Peter Bennett, leaving out last night’s corpse discovery.
“Occam’s razor,” Laila said when he finished.
He waited.
“The most likely answer is that your cousin was distraught over this scandal which cost him his marriage, his fame, his life in his eyes—and ended it.”
Wilde nodded.
“But you don’t buy that explanation.”
“I don’t know.”
“Whatever happened to Peter Bennett, it probably relates to his being a reality star.”
“Most likely.”
“And I imagine your knowledge of that world is somewhat limited.”
“You have a thought?”
“I do.”
“And that is?”
“Let’s get you educated on the subject.”
“How?”
“Matthew and Sutton will be here in an hour.”
“You want me to leave?”
“No, I want you to stay. They’re the ones who are going to educate you.”
*
All four of them—Wilde, Laila, Matthew, Sutton—spent the next several hours streaming episodes from the PB&J season of Love Is a Battlefield.
Sutton watched Wilde. “You hate this, right?”
He saw no reason to lie. “I do, yes.”
It would be hackneyed for Wilde to note that the series was inane, repetitive, manipulative, dishonest, scripted, and even abusive—almost no contestant got out unscathed, without being mocked or ridiculed or made to look evil or heartbroken or deranged—but there was often too fine a line between hackneyed and truth. Wilde had tried to watch the show with an open mind and low expectations, understanding that he was far from the target audience, but Love Is a Battlefield was worse and even more destructive than he had imagined.
Matthew and Sutton held hands while they watched. Wilde sat in the chair to their right. Laila moved in and out of the room.
“My father thinks it marks the end of civilization,” Sutton said.