Page 30 of Love is a Game

“Who?”

“Misha! She’s on her way over!”

Tuck eyes my outfit, smirking. “And you’re going for the effortlessly disheveled look?”

I glance down at my oversizedWham!t-shirt.

“Don’t worry, Pen,” Tuck says, adding toast to the breakfast spread, “post-punk hair and ironic neon are probablyhugein Newcombe.”

I freeze, my stolen piece of crispy bacon suspended midair. “Newcombe? Why the fuck are we going to Newcombe?”

Tuck wags a warning finger. “Don’t look at me. I gave you an out last night—told her we had stuff to deal with at the funeral home. But no, you had to be contrary as hell. Whatever I said, you swore the opposite.”

His tone is clipped, and I note his irritation as he aggressively scrapes butter across the toast. Hmm. Okay, maybe I was a little provocative last night.

I reach for his coffee, take a sip, and grimace. “Ugh.”

I dump in a generous spoonful of sugar.

Tuck chews his toast, watching me with a neutral, unreadable expression.

The silence needles me. If he’s mad, he should just say so. If I upset him by being difficult last night, well…it’s not like he doesn’t know what I’m like.

I reach for the toast still in his hand, and he relinquishes it without a word.

“Tuck…I don’t want to go to Newcombe. It’s where Mom worked. I haven’t been there in forever. Why would I go now?”

His jaw tightens. “Well, that’s you all over, Pen, making champagne promises. Guess you gotta suck it up.”

I groan. “But Tuck…Ireallydon’t wanna go. Can’t you just tell her I’m sick? That I’m dangerously dehydrated? That I can’t possibly be ready for a trip in—”

Tuck flicks his eyes to his watch. “Eight minutes.”

“Huh?”

“Better get ready, Pen.”

“Tuck! I don’t want to—” My voice takes on a pleading edge, but he just turns his back, rinsing his plate in the sink.

“Tuck—”

“Seven.”

I groan, down the rest of the coffee, and stomp toward the door. “Shit.”

In the end, Tuck does throw me a lifeline—to a point. He invites Misha in for coffee, buying me enough time to at least attempt to look presentable.

Having surrendered to the inevitable, I finally climb into the Cherokee Jeep Misha’s driving—her boyfriend Steven’s vehicle—and mumble an apology for making her wait.

“Are you kidding?” She throws me a wide-eyed look as she backs out of the driveway. “I couldn’t have paid for that kind of networking! Tuck Allen’s business advice is gold—he even walked me through his global scaling strategy. Not that I’m going that big, mind you.”

“You’re expanding your recycled fashion range?”

“Just through New York State to start,” she says, swinging onto Main Street.

Then I hear how a recent health scare—an abnormal mammogram result that led to a barrage of tests—forced Misha to rethink her lifestyle. Along with religiously following the EWG Healthy Living app to avoid dangerous toxins, she’s adjusted her work life. She’s become more selective about the productions she takes on and is expanding her business so she can afford a factory manager, freeing her to focus on what she actually enjoys: designing.

It turns out Misha is best friends with Vivian and is totally inspired by her bold move to Blue Mountain Lake.

---