Page 8 of Danger

I lock my phone and set it back in my pocket.

“It’s okay,” I whisper to no one. “I’ll figure it out.”

I’ve been saying that my whole life.

By the time I check off all the items on PJ’s list, I finish in just enough time to get to my shift at Saddle and Oak. The parking lot is mostly trucks. Several are obnoxiously lifted, all white or black, all with mud-caked tires. I wedge my barely running car between a Ram and a Silverado and smooth my hair in therearview. If I’m going to lose my last shreds of dignity in this town, I might as well try to look decent while doing it.

Inside, it’s dark like normal. Nineties country is playing through the speakers, a mechanical bull is spinning with no one on it, and Honey is already at the bar with her perfectly-straight, glossy dark hair. She slides a glass toward me then pauses, eyeing it like she’s negotiating with her own morals.

“Now,” she says, lowering her voice, “I normally wouldn’t condone drinkin’ on the job.”

I lift a brow. “Normally.”

“But,” she adds, reaching for the bottle anyway, “I just broke up with Milo. For thelastlast time.”

I snort. “Thelastlast time?”

“It’s final,” she says, already pouring. “Which is what I said the last three times, but this one feels different.”

“Did he do something unforgivable?”

“He overslept and left me waiting for him on our lunch date and then had the nerve to say ‘calm down,’" she says, lifting her hands in the air.

I wince. “That’s a crime.”

“So, tonight we’re having just a tad. For emotional support.”

I pick the glass up. “For the record, I fully support bad decisions made in the name of healing.”

Honey clinks her glass against mine. “See? This is why I like you.”

I take a sip, then sigh. “You know, every time someone I know has a break up, it makes me less convinced Prince Charming actually exists.”

She laughs. “Oh, he exists. I’m just not sure he lives in Weston. But he sure as hell doesn’t sleep through lunch dates.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” I say. “Well, if you ever need someone to talk you out of getting back together with him?—”

Honey wipes down the counter and cuts me off. “I won’t listen.”

“—or someone to help you hide the body,” I finish.

She grins. “Now that’s friendship.”

The front door opens and the bell above it rings. That sound is starting to feel like a warning more than anything because boots hit the floor in a heavy rhythm, and I don’t have to look up to know. I feel it. The Human Thundercloud of a person who seems to be everywhere I go this week.

Of course it’s him.

Same hat. Same cocky posture. Same six-foot plus inconvenience.

I tip my we’re-not-supposed-to-be-drinkin’-tonight glass toward Honey. “Another,” I whisper before he spots me. She jumps on it with a knowing smirk.

He eyes the stack of trays sitting on the bar in front of me. “You really workin’ here, huh Shortcake? I thought you were just helpin’ out yesterday.”

Another fun nickname.

When I was a kid, I was the unofficial taste tester, of course—but they also made me hand out samples to anyone who wandered by. Little paper plates, tiny bites of frosting, the whole thing.

Danger, of course, would latch onto that nickname.Shortcake.