Page 6 of The Fall Risk

“It’s fine,” I said.

“I’ll let the ladies know you won’t be making it to bonsai class tonight.”

“Appreciate it.”

She smiled at her boyfriend. “See you later,” she said and gave him a quick peck. He grinned after her, smitten.

I used to be smitten with someone once.

Now I was divorced. Today, actually.

It was like the universe wanted me sequestered this weekend, so I had no choice but to mull over the very strange turn that my life had taken over the last year. No distractions. No daily trip to get coffee. Think about your ex and be sad.

I went inside to see what else I had with caffeine in it so I could stave off the headache I felt creeping in. I found a depressing, carbonated but caffeinated, sugar-free soda that Cecilia left when she moved out, and I was too practical to throw it away. I didn’t like to waste things, even things that tasted like shit. I took swallows of it like it was medicine. I watered my plants. Fed my fish. Stared out the window in my bedroom at the Black Mission fig tree that was the reason I’d chosen this particular apartment after the separation last year. It was a great tree.

Divorced.

I still couldn’t fully believe it.

It’s hard to process something like this when you did everything right. I could say, with 100 percent certainty, that I had given that marriage everything. I was faithful, I was an equal partner, I loved her with my entire soul. I just wasn’t what she wanted. What she wanted was fucked up, to be totally honest—which made it a little easier to come to terms with. But still.

Someone knocked on my door.

I set my terrible soda down and went to answer it.

It was Charlotte. With coffee.

Charlotte Chapter 2

Seth had excused himself to take a call with Gabe, and I’d used that as my cue to escape. I slipped into my apartment, bolted the lock and drew the chain across, and put my back to the door.

The whole last twenty minutes had been a roller coaster of . . . a lot of things.

I actually thought for a split second that the stairs had been George. I was probably giving him too much credit. He was very good at finding me. He was excellent at terrorizing me. But removing a whole flight of stairs in half an hour? It was industrious, even for him.

I let out a breath and called Izzy.

“Never do that to me again,” she said, picking up on the first ring.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sliding down to the floor.

“Of all the fucking days when I’m not picking you up for target practice—”

“I know. It was unfortunate timing. I got overwhelmed and I didn’t think to call you.”

She scoffed. “Overwhelmed is right. I’m here thinking you’re being murdered, and instead, you’re in a tree house with a hot botanist.”

“Is he?”

“Is he what? Hot? You have eyes, don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “Is he a botanist.”

“Yeah. He works for the city of Burbank doing tree shit. An arborist with a bachelor’s in botany from Cal State.”

Huh. I knew he was an arborist, he’d told me. I guess I just didn’t realize it was more than landscaping?

“He has no record, by the way,” she said. “And his socials are clean.”