She Has Your Eyes Read Online Free Page A

to pick up something he’d forgotten to buy and never came back.”
    Wylie looked down at the table; the purple strand of hair swung across her face. She pushed it away.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “My grandfather died last year. He had Parkinson’s. You know, the Michael J. Fox disease?”
    “I’m really sorry. That must have been very hard on your grandmother and your mom.”
    “It was my stepfather’s father. I guess that means he technically wasn’t my grandfather, but I’ve always thought of him that way.”
    “I’m sure he never thought of you as anything other than his granddaughter.”
    Just then David entered the kitchen. “Wylie, I want to apologize. I had no right to be so rude and accusatory, especially since you’re a guest in our home.”
    Her face turned red, and she avoided eye contact with him. “It’s OK.” The three of us returned to the den to wait out Janine’s arrival.
    Twenty minutes later, we remained in limbo as the uncomfortable silence saturated the room despite the annoying sports commentators rambling on the TV in the background. “Who’s winning?” I asked David in an attempt to break the tension.
    “Mets just scored again.”
    “That’s rare,” I said deadpan. David returned my teasing with a smirk, and I couldn’t help but release a flirtatious smile. For the first time since Wylie showed up, his eyes brightened as he nonverbally responded, and for that split second I think we both forgot she was in the room.
    Our mental foreplay was interrupted by a forceful knock, and we both jumped.
    “That must be my mom,” said Wylie.
    My stomach instantly filled with rocks. David’s did too, I could tell. Together we walked to the front door and opened it. A woman stood before us. At least five-foot-nine. Frosted hair that was once dark. Her eyes made up the same as Wylie’s. Full lips, as if injected with collagen. Thin. Full busted. Tanned. She wore black cotton shorts, a fitted white V-neck T-shirt, and gold lamé sandals. One look at David, and her eyes wentfrom angry to stunned, as if an apparition had appeared. Her jaw dropped. I glanced at David, and could read his expression: he
knew
her. And I could practically see his inner wheels spinning as their past relationship, whatever that encompassed—a one-night stand, a summer romance, a former client in the early days of his escort business—zoomed in front of him like a subway train. The floor suddenly felt wobbly. Yet when I looked down, the surface was perfectly flat.
    Wylie squirmed around me to say hello to her mother, and seemed almost pleased to see the mutual reaction, which made me feel downright woozy.
Oh yeah.
This was more than just a possibility.
    “Jane,” David said in almost a whisper.
    “Devin,” said Janine.

chapter four
    I froze. It had been a long time since I’d heard anyone other than myself or Maggie call David by his escort name. He seemed just as rattled by it. It took a full five seconds before one of us shook out of our trance and let Janine in.
    “So,” said Wylie, “obviously you two know each other. But how? I mean, when and where did you meet?”
    Neither David nor Janine said a word or moved a muscle. Wylie waved her hand vertically between the two of them to shake them out of it. “Hel-lo?”
    “Ms. Baker, can I get you something to drink?” I asked, my voice quavering.
    “It’s
Mrs.
Baker, and I’d better not.” It occurred to me that she thought I meant booze.
    “A glass of water? Coffee?” I pressed.
    David asked for water, but after I retrieved a tumbler and held it out to him, he changed his mind. I sipped from it myself.
    David had already shown Janine into the living room, and Wylie followed them. I found myself wondering why Mr. Baker wasn’t with her, if he knew Wylie had been searching for her biological father (and why had I not asked Wylie up to this point?), and if he knew Janine was here, or why. Wylie sat, eager to get on with the conversation.
    Janine