She walks around it once. Twice. Stops at the windshield, leans in, and stares at the bobblehead on the dashboard. Her head tilts. She cups her hands against the glass for a better look.
Nash cranes forward between the seats. "She's not mad."
"She's processing," East says.
She opens the door, picks it up, studies it, and sets it back on the dash.
East's mom reads the bumper, brow arched. She turns to Darla. I can't hear what she says, but East can read his mother's lips from a hundred yards.
"She said, 'Well, I do love East,'" he murmurs, grinning so wide it's stupid.
Nash exhales through his nose. "Your mother is endorsing this."
"My mother has taste."
They both get in. Windows down. East's six-foot face is on full display as Darla pulls out of the lot.
"They're going left," I say. "That's toward the café."
"Mom's favorite lunch spot." East is turning the key. "We follow."
We tail them at a distance. Three cars honk on the route. East's mom waves at every single one. Darla drives without flinching, parks the shrine right out front of the café, and walks in with East's mom on her arm. Both of them unbothered.
She texts the group chat while they're being seated: "If anyone needs me, I'll be accepting compliments on my beautiful car."
East nearly chokes. Nash reads the text over my shoulder and shakes his head. "She's winning again."
"She always wins," East says, wiping his eyes. "That's why I'm marrying her."
Meanwhile, Sloane's been texting. Her shift started at 5 a.m. She would have grabbed the scrubs out of the drawer in the dark, four thirty, half-asleep, muscle memory. Would have gotten one leg in before her brain caught up. By the time it registers, she's running behind. The hospital won't care what print she's wearing, and she's stuck.
Her first text hits at 3 p.m. while we're staking out the theater.
Sloane: You're dead.
A minute later.
Sloane: Dr. Patel asked if I lost a bet. A PATIENT gave me a sticker. The charge nurse called me "Jurassic Sloane" and it's CATCHING ON.
I laugh hard enough that East looks over from the driver's seat. Nash reads it from the back. "Jurassic Sloane. That's going to stick."
"It better not," I say. But I'm laughing.
She sends one more forty minutes later.
Sloane: I'm wearing them to the clubhouse tonight. If I have to suffer, you have to look at me in them.
Good. That's exactly what I want.
Candace opens her gym bag at four and finds a rubber duck. She holds it up, stares at it, shoves it into her jacket pocket. Finds one in her locker. Her water bottle. Her text to the group chat is a single period. Just a dot. She hasn't been behind the bar yet.
Maggie's pot roast hits the table at 5:30 p.m. James gets a text twenty minutes later. Just a photo. It's the pot roast sliced open. The color is wrong. A second text: "James Michael, what did you do to my cumin." No question mark. Statements are worse.
Frankie hasn't found the magnet yet. That one's a long game.
The clubhouse is loud when I walk in. There's music from the jukebox and voices stacking over each other. Boots on concrete. Pool balls cracking. Home, if home had a liquor license and a dress code problem. I smell fried food, leather, and whatever Maggie's got warming in the back.
Maggie's at the bar with a tray of something golden and warm. Cookies. She sets them down with a smile that's a little too sweet.
