* * *
“Come on.”Mel barged into my office, motioning for me to follow her. “I need you.”
I pushed away from the desk—and my premium view of the Naked Provisions patio—and trailed behind Mel as she descended the stairs. “What’s on fire now?”
“Nothing. Stop talking. Just follow me.”
“Should I call my attorney?”
“No. The more plausible the deniability, the better.”
“Nothing about this sounds good, Mel.”
When we reached the dining room, she beckoned for Zeus Castro, the assistant manager and backup bartender due to the present staffing situation, to come out from behind the bar. Agent Price was parked there with a mug of coffee and a hardcover novel. He gave me a quick nod before returning to his reading.
To Zeus, Mel said, “Beck and I are stepping out for a few minutes. You’re in charge.”
“How exciting for all of us,” Zeus drawled. “Enjoy pretending that you’re not sneaking over to the Naked party.”
“We are not sneaking anywhere,” Mel snapped. She grabbed my elbow and yanked me toward the door.
“Bring me a cookie,” Zeus called behind us.
Once outside, Mel blew out a breath and skimmed her palms down her thighs. “This isn’t a big deal. We have to stop in because everyone is over there and we’d look like cuntmuffins if we didn’t.”
“Cuntmuffins?”
“Very much.”
I glanced between her and the group gathered on the Naked Provisions patio. I’d spent the past two hours trying to clean up a cost projections spreadsheet but managed only to open the file and stare out the window as Sunny and her partners set up for the party.
I learned that Beth took every opportunity to dance, and Muffy shoved her hands in her apron pockets and shook her head a lot. Meara liked to give directions but Sunny was quietly,clearlyin charge.
She was also a complete hazard to herself. On three separate occasions, I watched her bunch up her skirt and climb on chairs to adjust the string lights crisscrossed above the patio. It was like she really wanted to find out how hard the stone would bite back when she fell on that sweet, cherubic face of hers.
Each time, I found myself standing at the window, a hand outstretched like I could catch her from here. Growing up, there’d been one rule in Lance’s house: don’t let Sunny fall. We were allowed to do anything we wanted so long as Sunny made it through the day without an injury. Somehow, after all this time, it was still the one rule that mattered most to me.
The other rules mattered too. They kept me up at night. They curled around my throat every morning when I woke up, choking on the unsatisfying fragments of dark-haired dreams. They were the cause of the knot between my shoulders and the dread I felt every time Lance’s name appeared in my text notifications. They were front and center at all times.
But panic-watching as Sunny pushed up on her tiptoeson the chairto get the lights just right made me realize that if I turned all the way toward her and let her blind me, I wouldn’t see any rules.
I knew this would blow up in my face. I knew I’d walk away with nothing but regrets. But I also knew I couldn’t stop. Even when I told myself I didn’t want this. I didn’t wanther.
With that cheerful thought lodged somewhere in my esophagus, I watched as Bethany flitted around the group, passing out cookies and shot glasses. “And she had nothing to do with your change of heart?”
“No,” Mel said flatly. She shot a pointed glance to where Sunny stood surrounded by people. They hung on her every word and I was irrationally angry about it. “We’re making an appearance. Nothing more.”
“Because we don’t want to be cuntmuffins.”
“Not tonight,” she said. “Not on purpose. You do enough of it just by existing. We can’t add to the tab.”
I reached into my pocket for my phone but realized I’d left it on the desk. “Fuck. All right.” I jabbed a finger at her. “Five minutes. That’s it.”
She glanced in Bethany’s direction. “We’ll stay as long as it takes. We don’t want to be rude.”
“A second ago, we didn’t want to be cuntmuffins.Thatwas the bar. Now we’ve escalated all the way up to not being rude?”
“We’ll leave when we leave, Beck. No need to bust out the stopwatch.”
