Page 113 of Even if It Hurts

“Sorry! So sorry,” she cried out as she flailed, trying to steady herself while simultaneously trying to get away from me. Making her tip even more precariously until either she was going down, or the donuts were.

But, I mean, they were donuts . . .

I took a step back just as she started falling only to be shoved forward by Briggs in his attempt to catch her, forcing the girl’s knee right into my groin.

I lost the donuts somewhere between dropping to the floor and choking on the piece I had in my mouth.

By the time I could focus on what was happening around me again and could breathe somewhat normally, Gray was still laughing hysterically. The girl was kneeling in front of me, apologizing profusely as her hands fluttered all around me without coming in contact, as if I wanted her anywhere near me. And Briggs was seething.

“Ada,” he shouted before pointing at the girl in front of me again. “What are you doing here, Chloe?”

The girl—Chloe—looked between Briggs and me so many times, it might’ve been comical if I hadn’t been dying. “Ada said—” Her face scrunched up in what might’ve been considered exasperation. It was hard to be sure. “Lainey said this might happen...”

“What might happen?” Briggs sneered before yelling for Ada again.

“Ada stopped by this weekend for coffee and to see Lainey’s ring. Which—oh my gosh—good job on that one. Anyway, when she was at our house, she said you’d decided to hire me as her replacement.”

My attention snapped to Briggs because there was no way he was hiring the girl who’d just dropped meandmy donuts.

Briggs dragged his hands over his face and through his beard as he took deep, calming breaths. “Is she—Ada,” he snapped when the woman in question rounded the corner. “We talked about this.”

“We did,” she said with a smile that said Briggs’ anger didn’t faze her in the slightest. “You didn’t listen to me, so I didn’t think it necessary to listen to you. And now I’m officially retiring, so Chloe’s gonna take my place. No need to thank me.”

Briggs edged out a frustrated laugh before looking at the girl who was now standing there, looking only slightly unsure of herself beneath the joy practically bursting from her. “This isn’t about you. I just wasn’t looking for Ada’s replacement, and she keeps forgetting she isn’t in charge of hiring people.”

“Right. Then this is awkward,” Chloe muttered. She gestured to me and gave me an adorably apologetic smile that I instantly hated because it seemed as out of place in that moment as her joy. In that building. In general. “I mean, more than it already was, considering. ..you know...”

“I do,” I ground out.

Her face scrunched up with sympathetic worry that was offset by all that light and excitement. “Sorry. Seriously, that’s...yikes.”

Yeah, not sureyikescovered it.

But I was more concerned that Ada was about to force her way through hiring someone else—this time, a girl who was too happy.

In general, I knew people considered me to be a happy guy, but I liked to think of it as a coping mechanism for what we’d seen overseas and on missions. Didn’t mean I was secretly miserable, or thought everyone else should be too. I knew there were happy people in the world—sometimes annoyingly so. But there was something different about this girl.

Like the joy pouring from her grated on my every nerve ending because, for how genuine it seemed, I was sure it wasn’t. And it made the way she was looking at everyone like the star-eye emoji bother me that much more. Like she’d gotten so used to faking her happiness that she genuinely didn’t know how to be anything else now.

Made me wonder why she’d ever had to.

Made me wonder what else she was that good at faking...hiding.

“Fine,” Briggs said on a sigh, giving in to his argument with Ada that I’d tuned out. With a look at Chloe, he added, “Ada will train you. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Briggs,” I called out when he stormed off the way he always did, like he was perpetually angry with the world and needed to show it in the way he walked. “Briggs, you’re really gonna let Ada hire her?” I asked when I caught up to him in the middle of the main office.

“Ada’s gonna retire no matter what. I’d rather have someone here to replace her.”

“Buther?”

At that, Briggs stopped and turned on me, eyeing me warily. “What’s wrong with Chloe?” he asked after a quick glance toward the front of the office.

“I don’t trust her,” I said without hesitation, so used to responding to his demands since he’d been my leader for so long.

But Briggs just huffed out his version of a laugh. “My fiancée wouldn’t live with her if we couldn’t trust her.”

My head shook as I glanced over my shoulder, noting how Gray was doing the same thing as he walked toward us. “Just something about her I don’t trust,” I finally said.

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