I need her to know that this time has meant something to me.
As if she can read my mind, she watches me warily. “But…” she says.
“But I need to show you something,” I say.
“What? Where?” she asks.
“We need to go back home, to Malibu.”
CHAPTER 34
Olivia
Chase drives me back to Malibu in distracted silence. I want to ask so many questions, but it’s like he’s shuttered behind glass, so I sit and try not to worry.
When he leads me into his cottage, for a fleeting second, I think it might be to go to his bedroom, that what he has to show me is in his pants and he’s just being extra dramatic about it all.
But all I see is a lovely room with a huge desk and wall-to-wall bookshelves.
I turn to Chase in silent inquiry.
“It’s my office,” he says. As if that explains what we’re doing here.
I walk farther into the room. Admiring the floor-to-ceiling bookcases.
Despite my unease, I allow myself to be distracted. Bookcases say so much about a person, and every little scrap of knowledge about Chase is like a precious gem. I collect them like a jewel thief on the prowl.
I run my hand over the smooth, whitewashed wood that holds a plethora of titles, a cornucopia of choice, from ancient Chinese philosophy to the history of cowboys. I wonder if that title was for the role of a Montana rancher he played last year. One section holds a collection of classic pulp fiction titles and spy thrillers, including the entire collection of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Hmm, I wonder if that’s his genre of choice. Like Remington, I can’t help thinking.
“Why are we here?” I ask. “What do you have to show me?”
He doesn’t say anything. He’s leaning against the wall next to the desk, his head bowed, as if bracing for something.
My eyes dart to his desk, and that’s when I see it.
A Remington.
It sits near the middle of the desk, just above his laptop, and is surrounded by a few stacks of paper.
I walk over to the old machine. It’s not just any Remington.
I know this typewriter.
I touch the T, where the letter is worn down and barely visible. I run my hands over the familiar chip on the N in Remington. I know every scratch and scrape on this typewriter because it used to be mine.
It’s my pen pal’s now.
So, how is it here?
It’s like looking through the viewfinder of one of Nanna’s cameras. Everything is blurry, and then with a few adjustments, suddenly, it all comes into focus. That’s how the idea, the inkling, the bone-deep knowing hits me. It comes rushing in all at once and clear as the margin bell on this typewriter.
He’s Remington, that voice inside me says.
But still, I look for evidence.
And there it is, in a stack of familiar letters, letters I wrote.
I riffle through them, reading, my face burning at how the breezy tone of my first few letters turns increasingly friendly, laced with intimacy and admissions about my life, my feelings. Desperately lonely, needing a friend and confidant, I shared my soul in these letters.
To a mysterious stranger.
I’d had no fucking clue.
Anger, confusion, shock rise up in me.
My Remington, my best friend for years, is Chase James. Has always been Chase James.
And he’s been lying to me this entire time.
Was this his idea of a joke?
Nausea overtakes me, and I feel like puking.
Remington—Chase—is the one who got me through Nanna’s illness and death. The person in whom I’d confided some of my darkest fears, the worries, and also the small, funny parts of my day.
I’d never known who he was, though I always suspected his world was more rarefied, more glamorous than mine, but I could never have imagined the truth.
I thought, at most, he might be some minor celebrity’s personal assistant.
My vision tilts just thinking of it. But it’s there on Chase’s face. The guilt of it. He swallows visibly.
“Now you know.” He lets out a shaky exhale. “What are you thinking?”
“How did this start? How’d you get my typewriter?” I ask raggedly.
He shakes his head. “Daisy sent it to me.”
My heart stops. “Daisy? She knows? She never said a word. I thought she was a friend,” I whisper at the betrayal. Has everyone been laughing at me? Am I the stupid girl who was fooled so easily? I feel my knees get weak as my perspective on my world realigns into something I don’t recognize.
“Hey, steady.” It takes two of his long steps to reach me, and he’s leading me to the couch. I’m too frozen to object. I sink into it. He kneels in front of me; his eyes are pleading. Chase leans over to touch my knee but then pulls away, as if thinking better of it.