Page 99 of Bad Reputation

When she gave Cole a warm shake of her head to say that she was fine, he turned back to Tasha. “Have you talked to Libby? How is she feeling?”

“Tired.” Tasha gave a shrug, as if to sayWhat would you expect?“That girl has worked her tail off. She has Jack doing all her follow-up calls now.”

Cole cocked his brows. “What’s the story there?”

“Well—” Tasha matched his salacious tone.

“You gossips.” Ryan snapped a tea towel at Cole and caught him on the arm. From the tang, it sounded like it had landed with some force.

“And proud of it.” Cole rubbed the back of his arm, laughing. “I like Libby and Jack, but they trade in gossip about us. It seems only fair that we get to do the same thing. And speaking of romances, I don’t think I’ve gotten enough credit for this.” He wiggled his finger between Tasha and Ryan.

Tasha was aghast. “You deserve no credit.”

“Hey, I chased off other guys for years before you were ready to admit how you felt about Ryan, and I talked him into—”

“Arg.” Ryan fell back in his chair, covering his face with the tea towel.

“Well, the rest of us helpedthat”—it was Tasha’s turn to wiggle her fingers now, in Maggie and Cole’s direction—“by not teasing you about how you and Maggie were salivating over each other.”

“That was very helpful, actually,” Cole said.

Tasha shot Maggie a look. “Is that what real people do when they’re not making movies—sit around and give each other the business?”

“Pretty much.”

And if Maggie set aside the mansion looming against the sunset and the high-level discussion about publicity and famous predatory producers, she could almost imagine spending a lot of evenings like this.

“You as nervous as Maggie about Libby’s story?” Tasha asked Cole as they carried the dinner dishes into her kitchen.

“No.” Cole wasn’t. “Vincent will try to snap back at us, I’m sure. But he’s going to find out that a lot has changed and he’s got less sway than he used to.”

Tasha made a face. She wasn’t convinced by Cole’s prediction, even though he was just echoing her own words from theWaverleywrap party. “He still might be dangerous enough to cause trouble.”

But here was where Cole thought they were all getting it wrong. Why worry about something that hadn’t happened yet? It wasn’t as if there weren’t real, actual things—inflation, wars, whether Hollywood was finally going to stop making superhero movies—to concern them.

“I’ve learned you don’t have to go looking for trouble. It either finds you or it doesn’t. So I’ll wait to see how this turns out, thank you very much.”

Tasha bumped his hip with hers. “When did you get to be so wise?”

Cole didn’t think he was being especially insightful, but he’d spent a lot of time at the bottom of the heap, trying to understand how he’d gotten there. It was enough to make someone philosophical. “Probably around the same time that Cody Rhodes was training to be an MMA fighter.” As far as mantras went,What wouldn’t Cody dowasn’t a bad place to start.

“That was your worst storyline onCentral Square. Hands down.”

“In fairness, there are a lot to choose from.” But they ought to be talking about something that mattered, and Cody Rhodes definitely didn’t.

Cole nodded to the window. Outside, Ryan and Maggie were dousing the firepit. Maggie was laughing at something Ryan had said, her nose wrinkled up and her head thrown back, and Cole’s chest squeezed, vise tight. She was so pretty.

Next to Cole, Tasha regarded the same scene, but she clearly only had eyes for Ryan.

“How are things with him?” Cole asked.

Tasha blushed. Like, she actually blushed. The sex must be radical. “Good. Except ... he tried to convince me to detour through Vegas on the way home.”

“To visit the Liberace Museum or the twenty-four-hour drive-through chapel?”

“The second one. Ryan has a thing against rhinestones.”

Cole whistled, but he wasn’t surprised. Ryan didn’t seem like the type to do anything casually, and it was clear that Tasha was it for him. “And you said?”

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