Page 206 of The Exit Strategy

Katie: I even made a fruit plate, for fuck’s sake.

Junie: YOU’RE IN ON IT TOO?

Katie: I have no idea what you’re talking about. My house. Now.

I only go because I’m nosy. And, if my nosiness gets me into trouble, I have a better chance of taking down Katie than I do Cole.

So here I am. At her house that’s like a full-size version of Debutante Barbie’s dream home.

And she’s made two mimosas roughly the size of fish bowls. Hers is already half gone, which means she’s nervous.

Her job is obviously to keep me on this side of our zip code.

“Where’s Cole?” I ask.

“Last I heard, he was headed to the library.”

“The shelving for the library wasn’t supposed to be ready until next Friday.”

“Hmm. Yay for meeting deadlines early. Drink your mimosa.” Her gaze darts around her home. Katie’s always a little flighty—God love her—but this is a lot even for her.

“Katie.”

“Just drink your damn mimosa, okay?”

I take a sip and choke. “Since when do you add vodka to your mimosas?”

“Since forever.”

“Katie—”

She doesn’t let me get another word in. The woman has prepared talking points and barely breathes.

She tells me a long-ass story about Stanley’s golf cart needing a new battery. An even longer story about Marley joining the bridge club, Marley getting kicked out of the bridge club, and then Marley taking over said bridge club. Then she moves on to a completely fabricated story about how Bea was once engaged to a man she met at the post office, which I don’t believe for a second, but Katie commits to with such force that I assume she’s under duress.

“Katie,” I jump in the second she takes a break long enough to suck down a quarter of her fishbowl.

“Hmm,” she hums around her straw.

“You wanted the role of my BFF, so wewillhave a conversation about how you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Maybe not about all of it, but you are lying. Spectacularly. With dedication. I respect it. That’s the only reason I’m not going to acknowledge it further. For now.”

Katie has actual tears in her eyes, and it hits me how much our friendship might mean to her too. I’d just alwaysassumed she’d taken me under her wing like a broken bird pushed out of the nest by its mother. “I love being your best friend.”

“I know.” I allow a large smile just for her.

“You’re being very generous about the lying,” she grumbles. Katie likes being called out even less than I do.

“Only because I can tell you’re under a lot of pressure today and I don’t need to add to it.” I lie back on her couch. “Just pour yourself another mimosa, sans vodka, and we’ll sit here drinking our faces off while I wait for whateveritis to happen.”

She finishes her drink before I’ve finished speaking.

Cole fetchesme at three fifteen with sawdust in his hair, my favorite expression on his face, and a smudge of something gross and gray under his chin.

“It’s installed?” Thankfully, I only drank one of Katie’s special mimosas, or I’d be slumped over and swaying like she is.