Ponytail clutched her chest. “Jump scare.”
Jean had the distinct impression she was waiting for an apology. “This is my wagon.”
“We thought it was empty,” the one with short hair said. “Everyone’s at breakfast.”
“Can you imagine?” Ponytail turned to her friend, Jean’s existence forgotten.
“I bet it’s that gray gloop they put on biscuits.” Short Hair gave an exaggerated shiver.
“What even is that?” Ponytail asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“I don’t know.” Short Hair leaned in. “Should we try it?”
“You are so bad,” Ponytail replied, with a little kitten swipe at her friend’s arm. “They are so bad,” she added for Jean’s benefit. “I really shouldn’t, but I probably will.”
“I might eat bacon,” the one with Mountain Dew hair confessed, eliciting a gasp from Ponytail at their daring. The pair exited without a word of farewell.
“Bye,” Jean said to the empty wagon. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I’ll be here in my bed, trying to get some sleep. Even though two randos just walked in and had a whole-ass conversation about breakfast foods.”
Not that Jean was hungry, or ever would be again. She settled onto her back, pulling the covers up to her chin. Being awake didn’t appeal, because then she’d have to think, and thinking would mean remembering, so she closed her eyes and tried to recall every relaxation technique she’d ever heard about. Breathing exercises. Finding her third eye. Singing that ninety-nine bottles of beer song—nope. No beer.
Out of desperation, she started counting sheep. She’d made it to thirty-seven when a loudbeep-beepdisturbed the early-morning quiet. It sounded like a garbage truck backing up. With her luck, it was headed straight for the wagon.
Jean considered lying there and letting it haul her to thedump, but she still had her pride. Some of it, anyway. Sighing, she dragged herself out of bed to peek through the door.
It was not a garbage truck after all. Someone was delivering a portable toilet.
“A little on the nose,” she told the forklift operator, who wouldn’t be able hear her over the noise. Jean knew her life was in the crapper. There was no need to rub it in.
The extra facilities were probably for Adriana Asebedo’s full crew, who were due to arrive today. Her prebreakfast visitors must’ve been the first wave.
Adriana “Charlie Is My Honey Baby!” Asebedo.
Retch.
Jean shoved down the memory of almost kind of liking her on the ride to Deadwood. All that was in the past. Now she hated everyone, including herself.
It had felt good in the moment to call Charlie out, spewing the magma of her anger in a lightly cowboy-coded rant. Where did he get off leading her on all over again? What was he doing following her around and bringing care packages and being handsome in her general direction? That wasn’t just dishonest. It was mean.
Only then, as Jean was leaving, she’d heard Charlie’s voice—speaking into the microphone, of all things. For such a mild-mannered guy, he managed to shock her with disturbing frequency. Jean should have made him play truth instead of dare, back in that bungalow of lies. It would have saved her a lot of heartache.
I could leave right now. There was a sliver of comfort in the thought, until she remembered that her best friend was out of town, her apartment sucked, and she’d need to find at least three new jobs the second she got off the plane.
And the odds of ever seeing Charlie again once she flew home were pretty much nil. Unlike Eve, Jean didn’t run in the samecircles as a future beer baron, much less the pop star girlfriend he pretended not to have. This was basically her last chance to get any kind of satisfaction from him.
“When the going gets tough, the tough… don’t go,” Jean announced to the empty wagon. Not the most stirring battle cry of her life, but she wasn’t in peak form at the moment. Surely she’d feel better when she finally accomplished what she’d come here to do.
There was only one way to find out.
It took four outfit changes to settle on the right look for the occasion: another tissue-thin bodycon dress with a wrist full of jangling bracelets.
On her way to the house, Jean passed scurrying roadies unloading thick cables that absolutely did not make her think of snakes. Golf carts buzzed back and forth, a counterpoint to the distant sound of hammering.
She nodded at the security guards stationed at Charlie’s front door. It was the same pair she’d met on the casino outing, which must mean their boss was inside.
Too late to turn back now. Jean pictured herself storming in like Maleficent, patron saint of uninvited guests.
Following the sound of voices, she found most of the younger members of the house party in the living room. Adriana gave her a nod of greeting, which Jean forced herself to return with a tight smile.
