Ruin Me, Daddy novel · Chapter 25 of 32

Chapter 25: The Night Before

"Then I'll see her Sunday," I said.

I pulled the freight gate shut on his smile.

Marlee didn't talk until we were back on I-65.

Then she hit the dashboard with her flat hand.

"Section nine," she said. "Derivative works. The name, the episodes, the clone. He sold you your contract and kept your face."

"He kept a girl with my braid."

"Same thing to two thousand people."

"No," I said. "It's not."

She looked at me.

"Nobody in that ballroom has ever heard Honey Vale in a room," I said. "Not once. Just through earbuds and car speakers. He's banking on that."

"And?"

"And I'm going to be in the room."

Saturday afternoon Forrest picked us up in Germantown in the green truck.

He'd cleaned it. There was a new air freshener shaped like a pine tree.

Marlee climbed into the back seat of the cab with two hard cases of gear and her laptop.

"Sir," she said.

"Marlee."

"I like you a crumb and a half now."

"I'll take it."

Lettie had texted me that morning. Got my ticket. Wearing my good boots. If that man says Honey one more time I'm taking them off.

Forrest had bought his ticket in October, the day after the parking garage.

He'd never mentioned it.

"You were going whether I asked you or not," I said, in the truck.

"I was going to sit in the back." He kept his eyes on the road. "You'd never have known."

"I'd have known. You can't sit still in a chair."

"I can sit still in a chair."

Marlee leaned forward between the seats. "He can't. I watched him at Thanksgiving."

The hotel was two blocks from the convention, an old brick place with a doorman in a long coat.

Forrest had booked two rooms on the sixth floor. One for Marlee. One he didn't explain.

At nine the model knocked on Marlee's door in a hoodie with the hood up.

She'd let her roots grow out another half inch. Her hands weren't shaking this time.

"I picked up my packet," she said, and dumped it on the bed.

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