No, she’d text Dan. That’s what she’d do. Dan wouldn’t ask about it. And if he did, Sam could trust him because Tanner trusted him.
She felt stuck in place as the web of her past caught her, and she hated it. Hated the way it made everything cold again when she’d only just warmed up.
“Tanner told me who you are,” Catiana yelled through the door with absolutely no regard for the neighbors.
“Go away,” Sam whispered to herself, gripping the styrofoam containers covered in plastic to her chest. The heat of the kebabs didn’t bother her. The seeping of the liquid into the plastic where it pooled didn’t concern her.
Catiana was the one who bothered her. Catiana and that little voice in the back of her head that said she might be right.
Tanner had cared for her, Mach said. He probably loved her.
“When I saw him at the concert,” Catiana continued. “He told me exactly who you are. You should ask your friend… what was her name? Ashley? She was there, too.”
“Go away,” Sam whispered again. This was only a mind game, and mind games were never real.
“Did you know back in the day he used to laugh at your song with me? He knew all the lyrics. Better than me. Probably better than you, too.”
Sam’s chest tightened. But why wouldn’t he have found a chuckle at her expense? The rest of the world did. It’s not like it changed anything in the present.
“Go away,” she chanted to herself.
“He’s always been able to talk to me, you know? I wrecked it for a bit. But I’m ready to fix it. He deserves that. You know it and I know it, and even that ogre Hans knows it.” She was on a roll now.
“Go away,” Sam whispered again as she set the food aside.
“That’s all I came to say. You know the stakes,” Catiana yelled, again through the door. “It’s up to you now.”
Sam pressed her palms to her cheeks. This was one of those moments she’d faced before—when she had to decide whether she left to protect the people she loved or stayed and risked more than she could handle losing.
But this time, instead of allowing herself to fall into the vat of panic, she swerved left.
Things she knew?
Ashley would tell no one about Sam’s secrets. Never.
Tanner cared for her and at some point she’d fallen past the lust and straight toward being in love with him. That part was the one that scared her.
But even if he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t do anything to cause her pain. He wouldn’t tell her secrets. And even as a kid, he wouldn’t have made fun of her. That’s just not who he was.
Another thing she knew?
Catiana wasn’t trustworthy. She’d already proven all of that. And, clearly, she’d figured things out and had an agenda.
Which meant there was only one thing she should do right now. Carefully, she grabbed her cell and forced her hands not to shake.
Then she called Mach.
Chapter Eighteen
TANNER
“Hey, Tanner, your girl just arrived,”Hans said over the intercom into the studio. “Take five?”
“Better make it ten,” Mach said. “And group huddle with her once the wives show.”
“What are you talking about?” Bax asked.
Yeah, that. Same question, but from him.
