Page 2 of The Exit Strategy

Change all the passwords on her bank and credit card accounts. I could do it too. The asshole couldn’t pay her credit card on time, even after I set up her autopay, because she couldn’t balance her checking account with her bar tab and just assumed I’d fix it.

Create a burner account on Reddit. I can call it u/ReceiptsforGraceElliott and counter every single one of her claims.

Hmm…Reddit does like to lose its mind. If I make the retaliation juicy enough, they’d really?—

“Why are you still scrolling?” Fen’s sharp words snap me back to reality. He’s generally the playful one, but right now, he’s pissed. “I told you to take all that shit off your phone.”

“What’s happening?” Hudson asks from the driver’s seat. They obviously know me too well—that’s why they’re chaperoning my exile. Left to my own devices, I would have driven right past Porchlight Cove and never looked back.

Porchlight Cove.

Of course Cole would live on a barrier island that sounds as though it was designed for second chances. If I had any other options…

My fall has been deep and fast.

I have no other options now that the TikTok mafia is on my heels.

“Grace started some new social media profiles,” Fen grumbles. “She named herselfI.AM.Sorryand is going on the offensive against our little Spite-Berry.” He turns his glare my way again. “You should have told me she filmed you throwing all her shit out of a second-story window. Or that you made a goddamn retaliation video last night. This makes my job much harder.”

“I simply refuted her lies,” I say.

“With all the sass and spite you could muster. Jeez-us, Junie.” Fen groans. “Now she’s splicing together bits from your new video to back up her falsifications. This is why you cannot engage.”

Because I’m not as likable as most women my age. I’m too…thorny. He doesn’t say it, but that’s the gist of it.

“You what?” Hudson has perfected the dad-bark. It’s annoying. “For fuck’s sake, Juniper Marie, what the actual fuck. Didn’t the Mr. Fissile debacle teach you anything?”

If I had to label my teenage protectors, I’d say my big brother, Nolan, maintained that role, mostly. Fenway became the excitable uncle who just wanted me to be happy. Hudson was the grumpy dad who never took any of my shit.

And Cole?

Cole became my best friend.

My confidant.

My silent encourager and emotional support beam.

Until he left me too.

Not that these guys have any right to scold me. I’m no longer the teenager they had to shuttle to school. I’m twenty-four years old! And it’s my freaking house.

My mother’s cancer and my deadbeat dad are how my brother and his three best friends became the unlikely shepherds of my childhood—they moved out of their college dorm and into my childhood home to keep our lights on when my mother no longer could and my father flat-out refused. They were barely adults themselves, but somehow, we made it work.

Lord knows we had the space.

I was almost seventeen when she died, hence the weird boundaries the guys and I have had ever since.

Tugging my hoodie over my head, I shrug. “It’s my house, Hud. She doesn’t even have a lease. She’s a tenant at will, and I willed her gone.”

“Jesus Christ, you little law-skirting shit. That’s not how things work.” Hudson slams his palm on the steering wheel, takes a deep breath, then meets my gaze in the rearview mirror. “I know they hurt you, Junie. And if I could kill them with my bare hands, I would. But you’re an adult. You must start handling situations with your fucking brain, not your emotional trigger finger. Okay?”