And if I didn’t have to pee so badly that I was afraid my bladder was about to burst, I’d roll my eyes harder at the way Logan misuses the air quotes and puts them aroundyourselfinstead of aroundparty.
“Why would I do that?” I ask him.
“Because you wanted to break into Simon Luckwood’s house and meet him like the stalker that you are.”
While my eyes are floating because of how badly I have to pee, his eyes are starting to water, and if I can see that from here, I’m about to win the staring contest.
Little victories.
I live for them.
They’re all I get ever since his brother stole my dreams and dumped me.
“I don’t have any interest in Simon Luckwood.”
He snorts. “Liar.”
I’m never getting out of here. “Even if I did, do you honestly think I set up a fake credit card that paid me and a fake email account to book a party and a fake voice on the other end of thephone line that confirmed Simon Luckwood wanted my burger bus at his house?”
“Yes.”
After I get out of here and can breathe again, I sincerely hope he and I are put against each other in pickleball this summer because I will fucking destroy him.
Specifically his gonads.
With my pickleball.
How can one family in town be allowed to torment so many of us and never pay for it?
Oh, right.
Because they also volunteer for everything and smile just right for the cameras and have this perfect public image that you don’t realize is a façade until you make your way into their inner circle.
And really, most parents in Athena’s Rest don’t mind that Mrs. Camille is, as they put it,a commanding presence in the classroom.
Love requires good boundaries and all that.
“Do you know how much it’s cost me to replace everything your brother stole from me when we broke up?”
He smirks.
No, a pickleball to his gonads will be too good for him.
I need something else.
Daphne will have ideas.
I keep my eyes trained on him, still not blinking, barely managing to not cross my legs and make it obvious how much overall discomfort I’m in. “And you’ll never make detective if you can’t piece together that, with my credit cards already stretched to the limit and nothing but a new business to show for it, there’s not a bank in the world that will authorize me for a random extra throwaway credit card with a limit high enough to book myself for a party at a place I don’t even want to go to.”
He points at me with the donut. “And there’s your fatal mistake. Again.Everyoneloves Simon, and everyone wants to see what he’s done with the old place. You’re lying, and you arebusted.”
“Did you know that getting donut dust in your eyeballs can make you go blind? And that when you go blind, you can’t masturbate anymore? Everyone knows masturbating too much makes you go blind, but no one ever talks about how the reverse is also true. The ability to pop a woody is controlled by the same nerves that control your eyeballs.”
He shifts a glance at his half-eaten donut, then squeezes his bloodshot eyes closed. “That’s not true.”
I blink too while he’s not watching. “I raised three boys, Logan. I had to know these things to keep them safe.”
“You’re threatening an officer of the law.”
