ALWAYS ANSWER has shared his location.
She rolled her eyes and sipped her boozy slushie, but she still tapped the dot on the map.
Seven minutes away.
“Matty has his own room,” Sara mused. “I could disappear for the night.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know what to do.”
Sara leaned in close, bumping her shoulder into Hanna’s.
“What would your mom tell you to do?”
“Are you set on hydrangeas? Because when I think fall, I think something like this,” Maricela chirped, flipping her phone toward them.
A cluster of glowing sunflowers nestled between dripping greens and soft pink peonies cast a yellow glow on Sara’s face.
“Well then,” Sara smirked. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
TWENTY-ONE
Hanna perched on a sofa that smelled deliciously like smoke and whiskey in the Baccarat, trying to breathe like a normal person. The previous two days had caught up to her.
Milo stood at the bar, waiting for drinks—not that she needed any more fuel on the fire. Logan’s accusations had been circling the drain of her mind, running down her spine and settling in her gut.
Was I just another project?
“I grabbed a cigar too. I don’t know if it’s your thing, but I can get you one.”
He set their drinks down on the glass table in front of them and sat next to her, careful to leave her plenty of space.
Goddammit, why does he have to be so considerate?
“I’ll try yours and let you know. I don’t think I’ve ever had one that didn’t come in a fruit flavor from a gas station.”
He laughed and struck a match, lighting the end. Hanna ran a thumb over the wrapper he’d left on the table. She had no idea what she was looking at, but it was embossed and felt nice to give her hand something to do.
She watched him take a slow drag, admiring the sight despite herself. She knew smoking was problematic in theory, but she also believed that living until ninety would be its own kind of torture.
Besides, her mother never smoked a day in her life, and look what that had gotten her.
Milo leaned back over the couch, his arm extended toward her, fingertips just a few inches away from her shoulder. She could have easily leaned a few inches in, just to see what he'd do, but she was cautious.
Instead, she grabbed the sweaty rocks glass from the table, not bothering to ask what it was. She knew it would be great and was beyond any ability to parse out delicate notes anyway.
She sipped, the amber liquid hitting her in the back of the throat with a thick, peaty punch. A scotch, probably?
“You like it?” he asked, smoke billowing out of the sides of his mouth. "Port Charlotte. It's just about the heaviest peated scotch I've tried. Thought you might want something different."
Something different, indeed.
She cleared her throat. “It’s like drinking a campfire... but not in a bad way?”
“Here,” Milo said and passed her the cigar. She held it between two fingers and tried not to look like it was her first time. She took a puff, holding it mostly in her mouth, afraid to cough like an amateur in front of him.
She didn’t hate the way it stung as it mixed with the scotch. She exhaled slowly, his curious eyes watching her every breath.
“I get why people enjoy this.”
