They sat like that, with April’s hand in his under the table, his thumb brushing steady circles along her knuckles. Eventually, April gave his hand a gentle squeeze, aI see you. Still here.Then she stood and moved to sit beside Jax, bumping his shoulder with hers.
"You brought him here, didn't you?"
“Jiro created the problem. I made it worse.” A small tilt of the head and he turned to meet her gaze. “We both owed you. I said my piece. You needed his.”
“Problem identified. Solution implemented.” His fingers tapped once against his phone screen. “I want to solve your problems when I can.”
April leaned in. Rested her head briefly on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she said.
Then Liam stood, glass in hand.
The booth went quiet, that particular hush that meant something was about to happen. Somethingimportant. The kind of thing April knew would haunt her later when she wastrying to sleep and her brain queued up every major decision she'd made that day.
Liam’s smile was sharp and warm at the same time. He looked at April.
“To chaos,” he said. “To revenge. To Tuesday getting out of hand.”
He paused.
“To the seven pranks of April.”
Glasses lifted.
“To the seven pranks of April.”
April looked around the booth. Seven engraved name tags. Seven men watching her like this was just the beginning.
Let Future April figure it out. Present April was going to enjoy this.
Chad
CHAD HAD BEEN REFRESHING his phone for the last hour, watching Jiro's sad clown song rack up views. Ten thousand. Fifty thousand. Two hundred thousand.
“This is so relatable.”
“I felt this in my soul.”
“Who hurt you, king?”
But someone kept tagging him.
@JRXXX:This one's for all the sad clowns out there??
@JRXXX:When you think you're the main character but you're actually just the punchline??
@JRXXX:The accuracy is DEVASTATING??
Every clown emoji was practically drawing arrows.
And then he saw it.
Someone's Instagram story: Jiro on a dance floor. Killian in a VIP booth. Caleb. Liam. April.
Everyone he needed to talk to, all in one place.
Caleb would want an update. Maybe even introduce him around. Killian was probably cooling off by now—ready to laugh about the whole misunderstanding.
And April—She always listened. Five minutes alone with her and he could fix this.
