Page 29 of The Faceoff

“Cash always has opinions.”

“These ones are going to be loud.”

“I know.”

He nods once, and hands me another bag, and we finish the kitchen without discussing it further, because Wyatt Calloway understands that some things need to finish developing before they’re ready to be talked about, and this is one of them.

Cash finds me on the porch again at midnight.

I’ve been out here for twenty minutes, the party fully gone now, the house quiet behind me. He comes through the screen door with two waters, hands me one, drops into the chair beside me.

“You’ve got a face,” he opens with.

“I have a face.”

“The thinking face. The one that means you’ve already decided something and you’re just waiting for the right moment to tell us.”

“I haven’t decided anything.”

“You’ve definitely decided something.” He stretches his legs out, studies the lamppost. “Does it have to do with Sloane Beckett?”

I look at him.

He spreads his hands. “I’m observant.”

“You’re annoying.”

“Also true. Both things can be⁠—”

“I overheard Bella,” I say. “On the porch. Earlier. With two of her friends.”

Cash goes still in the way he goes still when he’s actually listening, the performance dropping away. “And?”

“Evan’s going to give her—Sloane—a week and then show up with flowers. Bella said she’ll fold.” I pause. “Bella also said I’d be texting her again within the week, which⁠—”

“Which, no.”

“Which, no,” I agree.

Cash is quiet for a moment. The good quiet — the one where he’s actually thinking rather than loading the next joke. I wait for it.

“So you want to make it harder for him to run his plan,” he says.

“It’s not right that he gets to count on her having no one.”

“No,” Cash agrees. “It’s not.” Another pause. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that Evan’s whole plan relies on me stepping away. On me being the guy who stepped in once because it was convenient and then went back to his own life.”

“And you don’t want to go back to your own life.”

“I want him to not see me coming.”

Cash turns his head and looks at me with the expression he wears when he’s deciding how honest to be. “Beau.”

“What?”

“You’ve known this girl for forty minutes.”