Page 68 of The Exit Strategy

Images flash like warning signs with all the ways I could retaliate, but I blink them away and focus on the man in front of me.

“She tagged Callahan in an old photo of us and used the hashtag accountability,” I say instead of the spiteful daydreams boxing in my mind. Then I pick up the muffin so I’ll have something to do with my hands. “I wrote a reply.”

The lashes of his right eye twitch.

“Which I deleted.” My tone brings me right back to being sixteen when I thought I had life all figured out.

Cole sits on the edge of the table, close enough to touch, far enough away that he doesn’t. “That’s good, Junie.”

“Good that I wrote it, or good that I deleted it?”

“Probably both.” He leans back, resting on his palms. It puts his forearms right at eye level. “Writing it means you’re not swallowing it. Deleting it means you’re not performing it. That’s growth, Viper.”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me,” I grumble. “That’s Bea’s job.”

“Bea charges an exorbitant fee. I’m free.”

If only that were true.

“You get what you pay for,” I snark to hide my new and wildly unpredictable emotions.

It almost earns me a smile. Then he’s gone, back to his desk that annoyingly faces mine as if it’s a design choice he made, not an irrational pull he feels.

Katie findsthe post before I can ask Fen to bury it.

The woman has a Google alert set for my name, which she announced at last week’s meeting as though digital surveillance is a love language.

Maybe here, it is.

“Honey.” She holds up her phone during a commercial break. “Your villain is doing a press tour.”

The air in the room shifts.

“This is slander,” Stanley says, scrolling Katie’s phone as though his golf cart license plate that says Enforcer also carries weight here.

“Technically, it’s libel,” I mutter. “Slander is spoken.” I can thank Hudson for that differentiation.

“I’m making a retaliatory video.” Stanley adjusts his collar. “Marley, get the ring thingy light fixture.”

“Absolutely not.” Marley keeps her head down to her own phone. “Cease and desist. I’ll write it on community letterhead. I have that authority. We’ll make it professional.”

“You have HOA authority—very, very minor authority at that,” Cole says from his place holding up the back wall. “Grace doesn’t live here.”

“It’s not about the letterhead,” Marley protests. “It’s about scaring that nitwit into doing the right thing.”

Katie squeezes my hand. Quick, fierce, and gone before anyone can accuse her of going soft.

“That girl wouldn’t know accountability if it bit her in the rear end.” Dollie crosses her legs, then swings themwildly. Pissed-off Dollie is cute, with her little 50s style dress and kitten heels.

Stanley buzzes about searching for a ring light, while Marley mutters under her breath with the intensity of someone who’s used to suing landscapers and winning.

They’re angry on my behalf, not because they picked a side online, but because they know me and like who I am.

If I don’t choose me, who will?That’s been my operating principle since the first time my mother forgot to pick me up in kindergarten. But sitting here, surrounded by people who are actively choosing me without me having to do or say anything, I question myself.

Is my principle inherently wrong or just incomplete?

“Show’s on,” Marley announces with a sharp clap. “We’ll get back to Juniper’s smackdown at the next commercial.”