She maintained eye contact the whole time she spoke, not bothering with any fake contrition. When she was finished, Brandon dragged a finger across his throat, then turned and left.
Oh well. She’d made her point for the day.
By the end of her shift, she wasbored.Was she supposed to spend the rest of her career locked alone in a booth? How did Skip stand it? A social creature like her shouldn’t be cooped up like this.
Her phone buzzed, and she dove for it.
Dave:Ana says u done good.
Mabel: Sorry, but you need to leave her immediately. She’s obviously lost her mind.
Dave: I also say u done good.
Mabel:Then you’ve lost your mind and she should leave YOU. Don’t worry, you can stay in my spare bedroom until the divorce is final.
She tucked the phone into her bag, feeling lighter than a moment ago. Maybe it wasn’t boredom she was feeling, but loneliness. And now she’d be headed home to an empty house. It never used to bother her, before…
Before nothing. Before nobody. This off-kilter feeling certainly wasn’t about the man who didn’t want her in his life at all. She was in a temporary weird spot, that’s all. She’d get through it.
She powered down the nonessential equipment and made sure Dave’s prerecorded voice track was set to play overnight. Then she grabbed her purse and left through a greenroom made otherworldly by the dim glow of the nighttime security lights.
Twenty-Two
Three weeks into the second stage of his life in Beaucoeur, Jake had resigned himself to the status quo. Weird how alternating work and sleep didn’t have the same appeal for him that it used to. So what if he was spending another of his Friday nights working on the Kriegsman file? It’s what he would’ve been doing in Chicago. Of course, there he’d be surrounded by the plush rugs, sleek sofas, and carefully selected architectural prints decorating his Gold Coast condo. Not that he was too good for the Formica and microsuede. Hell, everything in this apartment, including the uneven kitchen table that doubled as a desk, was miles nicer than the stuff he grew up with.
The problem was Mabel of course. She’d been in this place only once, yet he felt her absence everywhere.
He pushed back from the table with a snarl and stalked to the fridge to snag a beer. He was so fucking tired of himself. He was moping around like some kind of Howard Hughes-ian recluse when in fact his partnership was closer than ever. With an angry twist, he pulled off the cap but ended up staring into the neck of the bottle, unsure if he had the strength to even perform the simple task of bringing it to his mouth.
A pounding on his door shattered his pity party, and he braced himself to turn down yet another invitation to whatever social event Thea was jetting off to this weekend. Instead, he was shocked into silence by the sight of Milo on the doorstep with a duffel bag over his shoulder and a six-pack of beer under each arm.
“I sensed moping from all the way up in Chicago and came to make that stop.” He pushed past Jake and plunked the six-packs onto the kitchen table. He did a slow turn around the room, taking in the nondescript couch, bare walls, and tiny television, then gave a low whistle. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
Jake ignored the insult, too flabbergasted by his buddy showing up unexpectedly in Beaucoeur.
“What the hell are you doing here? And how do you even have this address?”
“Weaseled it out of your assistant at BPS.” Milo dropped his duffel bag on the couch. “She should probably be more careful about your personal information, but I brought her a muffin and overwhelmed her with my charm.”
Milo took one look at the Budweiser bottle in Jake’s hand and groaned. “It’s worse than I thought. Here.” He pulled a bottle from one of the six-packs he’d arrived with, pried the Bud from Jake’s fingers, and replaced it with a Sliced Nectarine IPA from Moody Tongue.
The gesture blew the rest of the cobwebs out of Jake’s brain. “Thanks, man.” Moody Tongue was one of his favorite Chicago microbreweries, and Milo’s thoughtfulness was the first nice thing to happen to him today.
“You’re welcome.” His friend grabbed a beer for himself, kicked off his shoes, and stretched out on the couch. “I’m yours for the weekend, here to take your mind off whatever’s ailing you.”
“What makes you think anything’s ailing me?” God, was his bone-deep sadness sending invisible SOSs all the way to Chicago?
Milo grabbed the remote and clicked around until he found the Cubs game. “I bumped into Greg McDonald at a charity golf thing last weekend. Man, you work with some douchebags.”
“Did he look smug? I bet that fucker looked smug.” His grip tightened on his bottle as he imagined McDonald’s beady, entitled eyes.
“Dude’s got resting smug face,” Milo pointed out. “I guess he recognized me from that bachelor auction we did last winter, because he asked me if I’d heard anything from you during your ‘prison sentence down south.’ I said the last report I had was that you were doing amazing work for your fancy new media company and living the good life in Beaucoeur. But I thought I ought to come see for myself.”
Jake’s anxiety spiked, and it propelled him to take a lap around his apartment. “Good life. Yeah, something like that.” Then he shut up and picked at the edge of the IPA label with his thumbnail.
“Wait a minute.” With a rustle and a clink, Milo pushed himself into an upright position and set his beer bottle on the coffee table. He even muted the game. “I remember that tone from all those years ago. You went and caught a bad case of emotions. There’s a woman, isn’t there?”
Jake cursed softly. This was the problem with people who’d known you for years. “There’s no woman.”
