Becki pushes off the doorframe. “It means Vice Presidents don’t hover unless they’re invested.”
Becki would know. She’s a club bunny, used to be anyway, used to be on the President’s arm a lot too before he tired of her.
My mouth opens, then closes. Because I don’t know what to do with that. Because I don’t want to be invested in. Because part of me does.
“Listen,” Becki says, and her voice drops, serious enough to make my stomach sink. “If anybody from Pearly Gates starts sniffing around you, you don’t talk. You don’t answer questions. You don’t let them walk you home. You come here, or you call me.”
I stare at her. “Why would…”
“Because I grew up there,” Becki says simple. No drama. No pity. Just truth like a blunt object. “And they don’t like loose ends.”
My head shakes. “How did dancing with a biker make me a target of a church?”
“Ignore my warning if you want, but I’ve seen it before. Innocent girls like you are supposed to belong to them. Not to Hell. Not to the Kings.”
“But I go to the Baptist church in Official, when I go.”
“Same difference. Reverend Crowley don’t care if someone outside of Paradise spends a night at the Lockup. But a member of his flock does, and they suddenly leave town to go live with an aunt no ones ever heard about.”
Lottie’s gaze flicks to Becki, like she’s talking crazy. Becki usually is. Then her eyes are on me. “She’s right,” she says shocking me.
“About what?”
“Pearly Gates’ folks. They’re polite until they ain’t.”
I swallow hard. “Am I a loose end now?”
Becki holds my eyes. “You got seen. That makes you a story in this town. A story Beth ain’t letting die. Stories turn into targets.”
The bell at the front jingles and it sounds more like a warning.
All three of us freeze like somebody fired a gun.
It’s just a customer, an old man with a busted watch and shaky hands. Lottie lets out a breath and mutters a curse that makes Mason giggle like he knows she said a bad word.
But my nerves don’t unclench.
Not really.
After work I stop at Slice of Paradise because routine feels safer than going straight home.
It ain’t.
Slice is loud with forks and the clatter of plates, but it feels like the whole place goes quiet the second I walk in. The hostess smiles like it hurts. Debra knows me. I work weekends here. But she says as little as possible and seats me in a booth near the window. She keeps her eyes down like she’s afraid to catch something.
I order my usual, sweet tea with extra lemon, and chicken fried steak if I’m feeling like I deserve comfort.
I do.
My tea arrives and I’m stirring it when someone slides into the booth behind me like they own the space.
“Cute dress,” a woman says.
Her voice is sweet. Her tone ain’t.
I turn and see her grin, glossy and sharp. She’s pretty in that mean way that makes men stupid and women cautious. Eyeliner perfect. Nails long and white and clean. Her cut hangs open over the back of the booth like she wants me to notice, like she wants everyone to notice. I can’t read it from here.
She leans closer, close enough that I smell perfume and cigarette smoke.
