"It's kind of like you, you know," Vivi says, gesturing to me with her drink. "You don't want to look any deeper into why Peter despises Duke, and I don't want to rehash my father's murder. Let sleeping dogs lie, or whatever."
I lift my drink in the air. "To sanity preservation."
"Amen," Vivi says, clinking her glass against mine. Then she looks past my head, her eyebrows raising. "I thought you said Duke had a dinner he had to go to with his dad tonight."
"He did," I answer, swiveling on my seat. I look across the room, to the space where the wall has swung open. Duke stands in the entrance, blinking as his eyes adjust to the dim light of the place. I wave, though the place is small enough that he would have seen us on his own. He starts for us. "I guess the dinner wrapped up and he decided to come. I told him I'd be here with you."
I'm too busy watching Duke cross the room to notice when the wall swings open again, but Vivi's low murmur ofoh shitdrags my eyes back to the speakeasy opening.
Hugo steps through, Peter by his side.
Chapter 17
Penn
You have gotto be fucking kidding me.
There Hugo and I are, minding our own business in Lunker as we choose a few new baits to try out at Canyon Lake tomorrow morning, when Paper Towel Duke walks in the shop. He strolls through the place without a look left or right, heading straight for the back wall. I watch him press down on a bright orange silver-dollar-sized button on the wall, then press his palm to the surface.
The wall begins to move, swinging slowly open to reveal a dimly lit space and ambient noise. I hit Hugo on the shoulder. "What the hell is that?"
Hugo glances over his shoulder. “King's Ransom, also known as a speakeasy."
Duke steps through, pausing in the open space, and I capitalize on his hesitation, rounding the end of the aisle and hustling toward the wall of trophy bass, which it turns out is a front for a speakeasy.
"Penn," Hugo forcefully whispers behind me. "Peter, whatever the fuck it is. What are you doing?"
I extend a stiff arm at the closing wall. "I want to go in there."
"We aren't dressed for it."
I look down at the two of us in our sweats, long sleeve T-shirts, and running shoes. "Is there a dress code?"
He sighs like he knows whatever it was he'd been about to say was going to put him on the losing end of this argument. "It's implicit."
"I'll follow the rules when they're explicitly stated. Until then," I push at the wall, and it slowly begins to swing open again, "we go into King's Ransom. And I don't want to hear another excuse from you about why we shouldn't, because you're on my shit list right now."
Hugo rolls his eyes. "It's not like you were keeping tabs on Daisy for the last fifteen years. How was I supposed to know I should've told you about her mom?"
"Sometimes you have to make choices when all you have is imprecise information."
Hugo lightly shoves my back, pushing me closer through the ever-widening entrance. "Don't use military thinking on me."
We spill out on the other side of what I thought was only a fishing store, but is actually a secret hipster spot with bad lighting and drinks with ironic names.
And Daisy.
Someway or another, it seems I can't go anywhere or do anything in this town without ending up around her. It's almost as if fate has planted its flag in the idea of us being together.
But this time, she's with Duke. The situation is already less than ideal, and made even worse by the fact that I slipped earlier today and told her I hate the guy. I don't know what came over me, and I definitely shouldn't have done that. She was challenging me about believing in the concept of being in love. Reality, or rather the current reality I've created for myself here, stepped in and took over my ability to form and speak words. There I was, blurting out the truth about how I feel abouther fiancé. Might as well have blurted out the truth about my identity while I was at it.
"Way to go, asshole," Hugo mutters. "Looks like you're finally going to have to come face-to-face with a human paper towel."
I eye the group across the room.Duke, Daisy, and Vivi.
"Where does that rank on the list of sentences you never thought you would say?"
"Somewhere aboveDo you want to watch me press olivesbut far belowI'm not a fan of deep throating."
