His eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “What? You think Mr. Stewart was just fine and dandy with you waltzing off into the sunset with a tummy ache-cough-cough-new man?” Cam shakes his head several times in an exaggerated fashion, his movements punctuated by the upbeat chorus to the Journey song.

“Did he do something?”

Cam nods. “You bet he did something. He gave me a black eye six ways to Chattanooga. Right in the men’s room at the Parker Meridien. Man, he’s one cold bastard. All mild-mannered on the outside, but steely-eyed when you fuck with him. Don’t mess with businessmen from California, evidently. That’s my new mantra.”

“Oh shit. I’m so sorry,” I say, and reflexively I step forward and trace my finger beneath his eye, even though the marks are gone.

He hisses in a breath, but after a few seconds of contact he swats my hand away. “It’s nothing. My mama came over and took care of me.”

I narrow my eyes. “Your mom? You told me your mom passed away years ago. Your dad, too,” I say, because Cam’s all alone. He’s an only child with a mom who drank till her liver shut down, and a dad who died of cancer. He’s a man against the world.

“I’m just busting your chops, baby doll. I took care of myself. I always take care of myself. Got a steak, slapped it against my eye, poured myself some scotch, watched a little Notting Hill and I was fine by the morning,” he says, all cool and smooth, like he’s always been.

“Notting Hill?”

“It’s only my favorite movie. C’mon. Is there anything better than when Julia Roberts says—” Cam adopts a female voice, placing his big hand on his heart, “‘I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her?’”

I shake my head. “Nothing better. That’s a great line. And Cam? I’m so sorry he hurt you.”

He flubs his lips casually, making a pshaw noise. “Your old man is one hundred percent fine. Nothing can hurt me. You see this?” He tugs at his shirt. “It’s called armor, baby doll. Armor. I got it in spades. I grow it from the inside out, and nothing can hurt me.”

I give him a smile, but I’m wondering why he is the way he is, so glib and devil-may-care on the outside. What’s he truly like beneath? What drives him? Why does he help put bad guys behind bars by leaking tawdry secrets to the press, yet run a call girl ring? And is he even still running it?

“Are you still doing your thing?” I’m not sure what to call that thing anymore.

He makes a dismissive gesture, a sign that he won’t go there with me. “I’ve got my fingers in a lot of business pies, little Miss Harley, don’t you worry one teeny bitty bit. Now, what can I do for you? Sit.” He motions to his couch. I park myself there, and he joins me, but he keeps a distance of a few feet. It’s odd, this new Cam. A part of me misses the strange closeness we had. But then he’s taking cues from me, and this me has to keep on moving into new habits, new patterns, as Joanne would say.

“I got a little something for you.” I reach into my purse and hand him a gift. It’s wrapped in sapphire blue tissue paper that reminds me of his eyes.

“Did somebody say Christmas came early this year?” He shakes the gift by his ear and pretends to listen to it, as if he can tell what it is that way.

“Just open it,” I say as I roll my eyes.

In one swift move, he unknots the silver bow and rips open the paper to find a signed copy of Sophie Kinsella’s newest release.

“Be still my ever beating heart. How did you know how much I wanted this book?”

I shrug. “Took a wild guess it was your taste.”

“I know what I’m doing tonight. Calling off all my business meetings and having a long hot soak.”

I have a feeling he might be telling the truth.

“Now that you’ve buttered me up, what can I do for you?”

I show him the cards and tell him everything. Every single detail. “I really want to find my grandparents. Can you find them for me?”

He takes the cards, looks carefully at each one, rises and heads to his computer. He taps on his keyboard. “You never listen to NPR, do you?”

I shake my head. “Not really a radio person.”

“Well, I am a radio junkie. And NPR did a story on one of the last vintage letter press companies in America a few months ago. I’d be willing to bet the house that these are from Violet Delia Press in La Jolla, California.”

“Really? You figured it out that quickly?”

“Yes. Bet it all on black.”

Then my shoulders fall. “But even if we know where they’re from, how will I get their names?”

He laughs, a knowing laugh. “That is the kind of shit I make a living off of. I’ll have it for you in a few days.”

Chapter Eighteen

Harley

Pregnancy does funny things to you. I find myself mad as hell when I can’t open the pickle jar as I’m making a sandwich for dinner, and Kristen tells me I have pregnancy fingers. I develop an intense craving for oranges, and she jokes that I’m contracting pregnancy scurvy. I cry when a collie jumps high in the air to catch a Frisbee on a dog-food ad. For that, I am diagnosed as just having good taste in commercials.

But I don’t barf again, and I can’t say I’m upset that I only had a few bouts of morning sickness. I even had my first doctor’s appointment, and the doctor said everything looks great. The baby is the size of a raspberry, and his or her lips, nose, eyelids and legs are forming. He also said the best thing I had going for me, ironically, is being twenty.

“You are young and in the peak of health. These are the best years to have a baby. It’s when your body was meant to bear children,” he said, and I wondered sadly about Trey’s mom and if some of her troubles were due to her being older when she tried again.

Then he prescribed folic acid and told me he’d see me again in a month or so. Weird that I was simply sent on my way. But maybe it’s not so weird. Maybe it’s normal.

But maybe it’s the pregnancy weirdness that makes me pick up the phone when my mom calls a few nights after my visit with Cam.

“Hello darling. I wanted to check in and see how things are going with school,” she says, making small talk. As if this is what we do.

“It’s great,” I say crisply.

“Learning anything fascinating about literature through the ages?”

I glance at Kristen and mouth my mom, and she pretends to run a knife across her throat. I nod, and laugh at Kristen. “Yes, everything is fascinating. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to invite you out to sushi dinner. I thought we could talk about things, and that book.”

“I don’t know, Mom. I’m pretty busy. And I honestly don’t care about that book anymore,” I say, though as the words come out, my curiosity gets the better of me, and I grab my laptop and quickly search for the book I wrote. It’s on pre-order status on Amazon and releasing in December. I wait for my blood to boil, for anger to lodge in my chest. But I feel nothing, and it’s wonderful. This book doesn’t matter anymore. It truly doesn’t. Miranda is a cold-hearted bitch, and I have no clue what she’s going to do with the money, but I don’t care.

“Then can we talk about us?”

Us. There isn’t even an “us.” But there’s no time to answer because the most beautiful name in the world flashes across my screen.

My former pimp.

“I have to go,” I say to my mom and I click over.

“Who takes care of you?”

It’s that bold brash voice I miss more than I would ever admit to Trey.

A match lights in me, so quick and fast I can nearly smell the flint as anticipation ignites. I am a kid on Christmas morning. “What did you find out?”

“Got Google in front of you?”

“I do,” I say, my fingers poised above the keys as I cradle the phone, crooking my neck.

“I had my people track down the card maker, and there’s a business that places regular orders from Violet Delia Press for these cards every few months. The business uses them in its sandwich shop in San Diego. Their names are Debbie and Robert Kettunen, and just to make sure it’s your grandparents, I checked the name of their kids. They have a son named John.”

My father’s first name.

The earth stops its orbit, stalling to this moment in time. Taken as a speck of cosmic dust, this data point is no more significant than tomorrow’s expected temperature. In and of itself, Kettunen is simply a name. It’s not as if I learned I have a long-lost twin, or that I was secretly adopted. But still, it feels important to me, because a piece of my life that was missing has resurfaced.

A family I didn’t have.

“And check this out. The cafe they run? It’s on the beach and it’s called Once Upon a Sandwich. That’s just a damn good name for a sandwich shop, isn’t it?”

“It’s a great name,” I say, and when Cam gives me their number, I write it down, even though I’ve already Googled their cafe, and I’m clicking through pictures.

I thank Cam profusely then wave Kristen over. “Look!”

It’s all I can say, all I can manage as I stare, mesmerized, at the screen. On the website for the cafe there are pictures of all the cards they sent me over the years. The cards must have been used for menus, too. Then there’s a photo of my Nan and Pop standing on the front steps of the cafe they own, beneath a red and white awning. His arm is draped over her shoulder, his hand skimming her curly blond hair. She has lines on her face, her eyes crinkle at the corners and I can’t tell what color they are, but she looks happy as she smiles for the camera, a short red apron tied at her waist. He’s balding and has a sharp nose, but he has the same tanned, weathered and delighted look.