Nate and Liam exchanged glances. I tried to stop, but it was no good. I was sobbing now. Nate went to an oak book-case on one wall and swung a bar out of one of its shelves, revealing gleaming rows of bottles. He poured me a shot of something golden brown and brought it to me.
"Rare Irish whiskey," he said. "Mom's favorite."
It tasted like fire, like gold. I sipped at it, trying not to choke. I didn't really like hard liquor, but this was different. I took several deep breaths.
"Thanks, Nate," I said. He looked like I'd just pinned a medal on him. He was a good kid.
"All right," I said, and picked up the keyboard. The two boys watched in fascination as I paged through my mail on the gigantic screen.
What I was looking for, first and foremost, was email from Ange. There was a chance that she'd just gotten away. There was always that chance.
I was an idiot to even hope. There was nothing from her. I started going through the mail as fast as I could, picking apart the press requests, the fan mail, the hate mail, the spam...
And that's when I found it: a letter from Zeb.
"It wasn't nice to wake up this morning and find the letter that I thought you would destroy in the pages of the newspaper. Not nice at all. Made me feel -- hunted.
"But I've come to understand why you did it. I don't know if I can approve of your tactics, but it's easy to see that your motives were sound.