One Year to Live: I Traded My Toxic Family for Global Fame novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Terms

"Twelve minutes," Tegan said. "This morning. With my brother."

Cal turned his head.

He looked at the tablet on the rock, and at her face, and he did not reach for it.

"You saw the log."

"It was open."

"Yes." He rubbed his jaw. "I'd have told you tonight."

"Tell me now."

The rain had thinned to a steady patter on the tin.

Cal sat forward with his forearms on his knees.

"Corbin called me before you woke. He asked if I'd keep him informed. Where you slept, who you talked to, whether you were eating. He said the family was worried."

"And you said?"

"I said no."

"For twelve minutes?"

"He's persuasive," Cal said. "He has a lot of money, and he took eleven of those minutes to explain how much of it I'd get."

Tegan kept her face still.

"What was the number?"

"Four hundred thousand a year, for a consulting contract with Stegman Entertainment. I'd be their safety adviser, on paper." His voice was flat. "I told him I already had a boss, and she was a director who tears checks in half."

"You know about that."

"Everybody on set knows about that. It's the best story anyone has told this season."

She watched him.

She had been wrong about people once already.

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