Page 30 of The Faceoff

“I know.”

“You stepped in because some guy grabbed her arm.”

“I know.”

“That’s — admirable, genuinely, but that’s captain behavior. That’s not—” He stops. Studies me. “Unless…”

“It’s not unless anything. It’s a practical solution to a specific problem.”

“The specific problem being that some guy is going to use her being alone against her.”

“Yes.”

“And your practical solution is…”

I breathe out. “If she’s not alone, he can’t.”

Cash stares at me for a long moment. Then he makes a sound that is not quite a laugh — more like the exhale of a person who saw something coming from a long way off and has finally watched it arrive.

“Your grandmother,” he says, “is going to be insufferable about this.”

“My grandmother doesn’t need to know.”

“Your grandmother already knows. She’s known for two years. She’s just been waiting for you to catch up.” He shakes his head, but he’s almost smiling. “So what’s the plan? You just show up and tell Sloane Beckett you’re going to be her fake boyfriend?”

“I haven’t worked out the specifics.”

“The specifics matter.”

“I know the specifics matter.”

“She’s going to say no,” Cash says, not unkindly. “She just spent an hour at a party she didn’t want to be at and her ex grabbed her arm in public and she walked home at midnight. She is not going to be in the market for another male with a plan.”

This is fair. I’ve thought about it. She was composed the whole time — the kind of composed that costs something, the kind you don’t let slip, and she didn’t slip once, not where anyone else could see. The spine thing, the arm she didn’t reach for, the dry precise sentences delivered to Evan while he got louder and she got quieter. None of that is a person who wants someone to ride in and manage her situation.

Which means the pitch has to be honest about what it is.

Not a rescue. Not me stepping in again. A transaction — her problem, my problem, a solution that runs in both directions.

“Bella said I’d be texting her within a week,” I say. “She’s counting on it. Evan’s counting on Sloane being alone. They’re both running the same play, which is wait it out, because nothing changed.” I look at Cash. “Something has to change.”

Cash is quiet.

“She has a problem,” I say. “I have a problem. Those problems are different but they’re shaped the same.”

“You have a problem,” Cash repeats. “Bella.” He says her name with the precision of someone identifying a structural issue. “She came to your house tonight. Made a scene in your hallway. Told her friends she’d have you back in a week.”

“Yes.”

“And a girlfriend — a visible, present girlfriend — makes her math wrong.”

“Yes.”

“And conveniently also makes Evan’s math wrong.”

“Yes.”

He sits with it. I let him. Cash processes fast but he doesn’t always show it, and the fast version isn’t always the one worth having.