Page 4 of My Dream

Yarder shrugged. “You gotta know nothing is free in life, doll.”

Fallon sighed. “I am probably going to hate asking, but what do you want me to do?”

“You’re going to handle Clay,” Yarder said simply.

Fallon reared back. “I sure as hell hope you’re not saying that I need to get with Clay to distract him.”

Yarder shook his head. “Hell no.”

I glanced at Fallon. “You got any clue how Clay is going to play being the new gun in town? Think we can steer him away from what we’re really doing?”

She tilted her head and considered it for a moment. “I mean, probably,” she said finally. “As long as what you’re distracting him with is entertaining.”

“Anyone else looking to run off and get married?” Pirate joked with a half-smirk on his face.

“No,” Yarder, Throttle, Cue Ball, and Fade all said in unison, their voices overlapping in dry denial.

Aero held up his hands defensively. “Hey, Sloane and I did our thing. You guys need to come up with the next distraction.”

The room fell silent, with everyone either looking at each other or staring at the table. No one seemed eager to volunteer.

“The Cakery!” Fallon exclaimed.

“What?” Yarder asked.

Fallon pointed at Fade. “Adalee wants to open a cake place.”

Fade looked around. “Um, yeah.”

Fallon looked at Yarder expectantly as if he could read her mind.

“The cameras want the club,” Yarder answered.

“Then make the club a part of it. Fade said there were a few places that might work. The cameras could follow along as the club decides to venture into a new cash flow. Then, once we find a place, you guys can help set it up,” she explained.

“You and Adalee wanted to do all of that,” Fade pointed out.

“We still can, but we can have the club be a part of it.” Fallon waved her hand. “Spin some story about Adalee and me working together before, and now I’m here to help her.”

Fade shook his head. “That isn’t going to fly. Don is Adalee’s dad, remember? Pretty sure he’s going to dig into shit if he thinks there is a connection between you and Adalee.”

“Whatever story we spin is what we’ll have to tell the cameras of how you just showed up, also,” I pointed out. No way we could tell the truth of how Fallon was here.

“I’m an old friend of...” she trailed off.

Yarder pointed at me. “Compass.”

All eyes turned to me.

I sat up straight. “Um, what?”

Yarder shrugged. “We can’t use Adalee. You’re the one keeping an eye on Fallon, so it makes sense that it’s you she has a connection to.”

“That might help you, too, from keeping Clay off your ass,” Pirate added and smirked slightly. “The guy seemed surprised to see you here. You’re here because you and Compass are together. Makes the most sense.”

Hold the hell on. “It doesn’t make sense because the whole time the cameras were here before, I wasn’t with anyone,” I protested.

Yarder shrugged like this was just another problem for me to figure out. “She’s a blast from your past that came back suddenly. I don’t fucking know. You two can figure that out on your own.”

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