Page 21 of Silver Secrets

“It was nice of him. But I wouldn’t say that constitutes spending time together. He was just following up with me because you left work upset.”

“But you were with him when Cookie passed,” Courtney added.

“You were?” Mae asked.

“I was. But that wasn’t something planned. I just wanted to drop off a thank you gift for having my back with my client. And then he told me what was going on with Cookie, and I stayed.”

“You stayed the night with Gage?” Lily’s eyes were comically wide.

“No. I stayed until she passed, and then I left.”

“If you left right after,” Courtney giggled. “Why are you so red in the face all of a sudden?”

“Oh my god, you guys! There isn’t anything going on between us.”

Her mind was all over the place as she looked down at her feet, praying her friends would change the subject.

“Sloane, is that your phone going off?” Lily’s soft question jolted her out of her isolated thoughts.

“What? Shit, yes. I didn’t think I had any battery left. Sorry, one second.” Sloane looked at the caller ID, immediately recognizing one of her clients calling. “I’m sorry, guys. This is a client. I need a minute to check in with them.”

“Should we stay?” Mae’s worried gaze met hers.

Sloane looked around, and her heart rate spiked. She’d been working overtime to stay distracted by fully paying attention to her friends that she’d missed them walking into the woods. They were through the front half of the race. In the end, her need to help her client won out.

“No. You guys go ahead. I’ll just catch up in a few minutes. Don’t have too much fun without me.”

* * *

“The girls just crossed.” Nash pointed towards the finish line, where Lily, Mae, and Courtney were giggling as they walked towards the tent.

“We did it!” Court laughed.

“You sure did. Here, I’m the official medal hander-outer.” Hawk grabbed three finisher medals off the table and placed them over the women’s head. A growl ripped through the air as Hawk’s hands lingered at Lily’s neck.

“Easy, Reap. I’m not feeling up your woman. Just didn’t want the twisted ribbon to bother her.”

“I’ll fucking fix it, you prick.” Gunner mumbled as he walked over to his wife.

“You know,” she giggled as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “You need to put twenty dollars in the swear jar. Hi, baby girl. Did you miss Mommy?”

Sage babbled and Gage’s heart clenched. His best friend had found such happiness with Lily and Sage. God, he was happy for them. His eyes wandered through the crowd, looking for the woman who had been taking up more and more space in his mind lately. When he didn’t spot her, Gage turned back to his friends.

“Where’s Sloane? I thought she was running with you guys?”

“Running is a very generous description of what we did,” Mae laughed.

“Who was it that brought out her flask the minute we entered the woods?” Courtney asked.

“I’m not the one who was looking forward to actually running this course.” Mae’s head tilted towards Lily.

“Yeah, well, I had a baby a few months ago. I’m not back to running form just yet.”

“Ladies, back on track please.” Gunner smiled down at his wife. “Is Sloane okay?”

“She got a call from a client,” Lily shrugged. “You know how she is about confidentiality. She told us to go ahead, and that she would catch up or meet us back here once she finished.”

“Okay. Why don’t you guys head over to Dolly’s. The band’s going to start playing and it’ll look good if some of us are there to thank the participants and sponsors.”

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