The barista smiles. “You got the last one. Anything else?”
Oh, what the hell. “Can I get extra bacon?”
“You got it.”
He rings it up, I pay, and he points toward the pickup counter. “Your order will be ready down there. Next.”
I drift toward an isolated patch behind the massive crowd clustered at the counter. I swear, half of New York wakes up here.
Kali balks in my ear. “Did you just order a breakfast sandwich? Myra is going to flip.”
“That’s why you can’t tell her.”
“As if I would,” Kali scoffs. “I know who signs my checks. But she’s freaking out. No one knows where you are.”
I shift my weight, still in my beloved ballet slippers that Harrison wrote off as a walking liability.
I track the baristas behind the counter, mentally counting how many orders stand between me and bacon. “Just tell her I’m somewhere with caffeine.”
“You know she’ll be scouting every coffee shop from here to Nantucket.”
“She promised me a week off,” I say. “And I’m damn well taking it.”
Kali sighs. “She’s been hassling me every hour on the hour. I’m pretty sure she’s got a direct feed to my phone’s location services. Which, by the way, yours is offline.”
The truth is, I shut it off a while ago. Just in case Pierce somehow had a lock on me.
And as much as I love and trust Kali, the girl lives on Instagram.
She can find anyone, anywhere, anytime. All it takes is one tag, and suddenly the internet knows what coffee you drink and which direction you’re facing.
So, if she knows, so do they.
“Is there anything I can tell her?” Kali asks, sounding desperate. Myra is making her life hell.
“Nope,” I reply.
And I hate to admit it, but as much as I was aggravated when Harrison first told me I couldn’t tell anyone where I was, it’s been oddly liberating.
It’s been three days since I last saw Lumberjack.
Not that I’m counting.
But my week here is already half over, and the small, reckless flicker of hope that I’d see him before I leave is fading fast.
I spent one full day sulking in my room, raiding the absurdly well-stocked fridge and binge-reading my books. It’s strange to admit, but I’m starting to feel like my old self again.
The version of me who had no idea what the hell she was doing with Pierce Maddox.
I glance at my reflection in the window and barely recognize myself.
Ponytail pulled high.
Ball cap tugged low.
Sunglasses big enough to block nuclear radiation.
Then I notice him on the other side of the glass.
