There’s been a reluctant truce in public for Annika and Grady’s sake, but I know behind the scenes, there’s still a lot of name-calling and suspicion.
Which is why Davis was correct in wondering how I would’ve gotten a map from Sarcasm, even if he shouldn’t know where it came from.
“Can we talk outside?” I ask Annika.
Annika’s brows lift. She’s roughly my height, with brown hair and brown eyes and a no-nonsense vibe. She’ll tell Grady everything I’m about to tell and ask her.
It’s what all of the couples in town do.
You tell one, you tell the other.
But I don’t want to ask Grady what I need to know.
I want to ask Annika.
I need to seeherinstant reaction to the question without any Grady influence.
“Outside,” I repeat.
Her lips twitch. “Sure.”
“In back?”
She glances at Grady, who’s lifted Miles up onto his shoulders while he finishes wiping the tables off.
“Sloane and I are taking a snack break outside.”
“Saved you a special snack in the kitchen,” he tells her.
Her smile lights up the entire bakery as she rubs her swelling belly. “My favorite?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. You can come home tonight and you don’t have to sleep on the couch.”
He chuckles the chuckle of a man who was never concerned he’d be sleeping on the couch. “Grab a snack for Sue too. He’s hanging out back there.”
Clearly good men exist in the world.
But not for me.
Annika pulls me behind the counter, rescues a donut from above the fridge and then a few carrots from inside the fridge, offers me anything I want from the trays of cookies on a rolling cart, and when I decline, she leads me out back where there’s a one-horned goat staring forlornly at the dumpster by the back door.
If she weren’t six months pregnant, I’d ask if we could climb the ladder up to the literal crow’s nest decorating the roof of the building, but sheissix months pregnant, so I settle for huddling against the wall while she tosses Sue the goat some carrots.
“Remember that map you got me?” I whisper. “For the museum?”
All of her cheerfulness dies a quick death. “What about it?”
“Davis knows it came from Sarcasm.”
You know those times when you tell a friend something and it doesn’t quite compute for them and they take one long, slow blink at you, like they’re trying to reboot their brain to understand what those things have in common?
That’s Annika right now.
Which is understandable. I’m coming at her from left field.
Even Sue pauses in his munching to give me a side-eye.
