My thoughts freeze and my skin goes cold.
I’ve never seen that man before in my life, but I knowexactlywho he is.
“Everything okay?” Mary asks, watching me warily when I turn back.
“Yeah.” I shake off the dread fluttering over my skin. “I just thought I saw someone I knew, but I was wrong.”
“Okay.” She nods like she’s confident, but she still sounds worried, and then she quietly claps her hands. “There’s Wren, my little lost sheep.”
The woman walking toward us is wearingwaytoo much black to be around this much zurgle hair. She snorts a laugh and shakes her head before holding out a perfectly manicured hand to me. “Don’t let her fool you. I’m so far from a lamb. It’s nice to meet you finally!”
She’s so gorgeous… if she and Riann were bonded, they might be the prettiest couple on the planet.
“You too. She’s told me so many bad things about you.”
“I have not!” Mary drops her hands to the tabletop a little too hard. “Don’t you dare make her think that.”
“She hasn’t.” I hold my hand up and mouth, “So many bad things.”
Wren laughs and sits beside Mary, hugging her as the waitress returns, but we don’t have to order. She just brings us the same things we ordered last time and a purple coffee for Wren.
She makes an unhappy noise when we thank her and hurries away.
The three of us share a look, but Mary asks Wren about her visit to a shooting range, of all places.
I watch the waitress work for a moment. She’s tense, and I don’t like it one bit.
“Oh!” Wren says, clasping her hands around her cup. “You met my best friend the other week. Leah,” she clarifies, “At Margot’s. She said you can do some pretty amazing things on a pole.”
“Is Margot trying to steal you away from me?” Mary pretends to be mad.
“Of course she is, but I’m not quitting.” I reach across the table and squeeze her hand.
“I’m considering giving classes, though.”
“You should.” Mary nods and says, “I’ll sign up!” before she takes a long sip of her coffee.
“If you do and Mary signs up, let me know. I want to be there to cheer her on.” Wren smiles slyly.
“You want to see me fall flat on my ass.” Mary snorts and Wren doesn’t deny it. She sips her coffee and gives us another wicked smile.
The zurgles come and go, most of them giving all their love to Wren, but one of them sits quietly beside me, letting me pet it all the while.
“We should get a group together and go to the?—”
The zurgle beside me hisses and yowls as the waitress sets a second cup of coffee in front of me.
“What the hell has gotten into her?” Wren asks as the zurgle jumps onto the table and knocks the cup off it.
The waitress catches it before it has a chance to shatter, but the lid flies and its contents spill across the floor.
“Shoot.” Exhaling and screwing her eyes shut, she says, “I’ll get you another one.”
But Mary says, “You know what, I’m done. Why don’t you just take mine?”
“No,” Paisley says, too firmly. “I can remake it.”
“Honestly, it’s fine.” Mary slides her cup across the table to me and the zurgle doesn’t react to it at all. She stares at the waitress, the pompom on the end of her tail twitching.
