“What are you gonna do?” Theo asked Laney, now standing next to Liam. Somewhere during her story, they’d all filed out of the bedroom to listen. “Are you going to the police?”
“Me?” she asked, like the idea was ludicrous. “I’m nobody, and it’s my word against DayGlow’s. They would destroy my family. Or worse.” She shook her head. “No, I’m going home to beg my parents for forgiveness, plead to move into their basement, and probably never leave the house ever again.”
“Where’s home?” Bowen asked.
Laney squeezed her eyes shut. “Henderson, Nevada.” She groaned like it was a curse. “A whole eighteen minutes from DayGlow’s headquarters.” Her head was in her hands again.
“You could stay here,” Theo suggested brightly. “A whole two thousand miles from DayGlow’s headquarters.”
Laney looked up at him, like she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.
I wasn’t sureI’dheard him right. Theo knew nothing about how hard Laney had tried to break me down.
But the woman in front of me seemed nothing like the woman I’d worked with last summer, and everything like someone who’d been broken herself and needed a fresh start.
“Yeah.” James rubbed his chin. “You shoulddefinitely do that.”
“There’s an apartment above my parents’ garage,” Liam said. “My parents would let you stay there. They love loaning it to people. It gives them a reason to tell my mom’s terrible family they can’t come for a visit.”
Everyone laughed, including Laney.
“And your parents could come for a little while to be with you,” Cash said. “Or a long while even. Holden and Christy’s apartment isn’t big, but my parents would let them stay in their bonus room. It’s really nice. They kind of live in a mansion.”
“Kind of?” I chuckled. “It’s a mansion. Period.”
“One hundred percent.” James backed me up.
Laney looked like her world had been rocked. “You want me to tell my parents they can come stay inFord Dupree’s mansion?”
“Yes,” Cash said decisively.
She laughed—really laughed—her whole body shaking with it. Which made us all laugh too.
“Okay.” She smiled. “I will. If you’re all serious.”
“We are,” we said at the same time.
I slapped the top of my thigh. “We love volunteering our parents without their permission. It’s payback for all the chores and farmwork they volunteered us for as kids.”
“Facts.” Liam grinned.
“We’ll pay rent,” Laney said.
“Nah.” Cash waved that away.
“Definitely not,” Liam said. “They wouldn’t take it anyway.”
I gripped Laney’s shoulder. “How about we let you castrate cows as payment?”
“Please no.” She smiled. Then she chewed her lip, thinking. “I wouldn’t mind… maybe… I need to get right with God.” Her cheeks flushed. “Do you all know of a good church around here?”
“We do.” I clicked my tongue. “You definitely came to the right place.”
She turned to face me. “You honestly don’t know where Julie is?”
I shook my head, chest tight. “No, and I really need to find her. Fast.” I glanced at Cash. “I think we should talk to Ford and Jeff.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s do it.”
