“You’re heavy,” Zach answered calmly. It might’ve been the gentlest rejection Janie had ever received.
She laughed, unfazed, and turned her head toward Tosh. “Didyoumiss me?”
“Not even a little,” Torie answered for him, voice tight as barbed wire.
“Oh, hello, Torie,” Janie said brightly. “You look . . . devoted.”
“Get off him,” Torie said. Her hand tightened around her glass until the ice cracked. It wasn’t fear shaking her fingers. It was something hotter, coiled and wild, looking for a place to land.
Janie shifted deliberately on Zach’s lap. “Are you trying to claim this one since you can’t have the one you want?” she asked. Her fingers trailed down Zach’s neck. “Zach doesn’t seem to mind me being here. As a matter of fact, I think he likes it.”
“He doesn’t seem to feel anything,” Candy murmured.
Lorenzo hid his delight with a cough into his hand. The bar crackled with quiet cruelty.
Tosh toyed with his lime. “You’re blocking my view, Janie,” he said, lazy as Sunday.
“Of what?” she teased.
“Consequences,” Lorenzo answered for him.
Janie stretched like a cat, then finally slid off Zach’s lap and smoothed her dress with slow hands. As she passed Tosh, she brushed his shoulder—just a whisper of skin. Tosh didn’t flinch. Torie watched every inch of the exchange with a precision that promised someone was going to get hurt.
Harmony felt her pulse tap once, low and cold. Moments like this were how people broke.
Moments like this were how killers were born.
Her fingers itched for her computer.
“Never have I ever,” Janie said, “fantasized about someone who’d ruin me.”
“Drink,” Candy suggested. “All of you.”
Everyone drank.
Harmony included.
Even Zach.
The table exhaled—one collective, dangerous breath.
“Another round,” Lorenzo coaxed, voice warm and wicked. “Confession keeps the demons docile.”
“Yours?” Mary asked.
“I feed mine,” he said. “They behave if I keep them interesting.”
Harmony smiled before throwing out a new one. “Never have I ever wished someone would say the quiet part out loud.”
“What quiet part?” Lorenzo asked.
“That they’re obeying the whispering demons they pretend not to hear.”
Janie clapped, delighted. “She’s fun.”
The tequila warmed Harmony’s stomach, loosening her ribs. She laughed easier than she meant to, felt herself shifting from observer to participant. The realization slid cold down her spine. Getting stitched into this town was risky. When a place like this bled, so did the people inside it.
Candy leaned in, her eyes soft and lethal. “Never have I ever sent a text and deleted it before anyone saw.”
