Theo kisses Laney once more, then salutes the rest of us and heads for the door without filling in any blanks that I’m not filling in for myself.
“Donotread anything into this,” Laney orders me.
“She doesn’t want to see us?” I whisper.
“Do notread anything into this.”
Translation: I saw the text, she doesn’t want to see us, and we need to give her space to fill in the answers whenever she’s ready.
While Laney was the one who let it slip to Emma that Theo had taken the fall for Chandler with jail time a decade ago, she didn’t know until basically the minute she relayed the information to Emma shortly before the wedding was supposed to happen.
I, meanwhile, was the one who’s known it for practically a decade.
“Theoshould’ve told her since Chandler didn’t,” Laney says softly, like she’s reading my mind, which she probably is. We’ve known each other for a long, long time. “And he’ll be the first person to tell you so.”
“Gotta agree,” Decker says.
“Thirded,” Jack chimes in. “And fourthing for Lucky. He’d be on TeamTheo Fucked Up Second Most After Chandler. And all of us say that as dudes who love the guy. But mostly, I think we need to remember that Chandler can be a charming asshole when he wants to be, and Emma wouldn’t have believed any of us.”
I hear them. I hear their words. But—“It’s hard for my heart to agree when she’s hurting and I could’ve prevented it.”
“You’re a font of information about our community, but you aren’t psychic,” Laney says. “Cut yourself some slack. And have faith in her. We’ve been through too much for this to break us apart.”
“Have we?”
All Emma’s wanted since she was little was to get married and have a massive family.
And now, after waiting for Chandler to walk down the aisle with her for seven years, she’s alone.
No husband. No kids. No white picket fence with the dog in the yard and the cat inside.
It’s not my dream, but it was hers. If I’d told her, would she have found a different dream man and be living her dream life now?
“Stop it,” Laney says. “Let’s get back to solving the problems we can solve and waiting until we know if everything else evenisa problem, okay?”
Jitter whines and puts a paw on my knee.
I bump my forehead with his. Cute massive dog.
“Okay,” I agree, even though my heart isn’t in it. “Solvable problems first. What else does anyone have on Greyson Cartwright?”
7
Grey
It’scold and dark when Zen and I finally leave the café and head to the townhouse we’re renting for the next few weeks. I’m hungry, tired, and in need of three solid days without people around.
Didnotthink through my stamina for peopling with strangers when I made the decision to buy and destroy Chandler Sullivan’s café.
And having Sabrina there until mid-afternoon didn’t help anything either. I could use an extra four days to process her reaction to me being her new boss.
I’m still irritated that she ghosted me in Hawaii. And knowing she’s related to Chandler has made me wary. So did her absolutely chipper attitude all day long.
I pieced together enough of what she told me in Hawaii with what I saw of the viral video to assume her desire to do good deeds that night had everything to do with her bride-friend’s wedding imploding. I also completely believe she was blindsided by Chandler selling me the café.
But no matter how nice she was today, I still don’t trust her. Not when she made it abundantly clear that night that she deals in people’s secrets.
“Do you want your phone back, or do you want the highlights?” Zen asks as I pull out of the Bean & Nugget parking lot, taking my thoughts in a direction that probably isn’t any better.
