Page 6 of With Any Luck

I step around him out of the room and head down the hall, taking the stairs to the first floor two at a time. The bed-and-breakfast is bustling because of the wedding, buzzing with the kind of chaos that makes it easy for us to slip out unquestioned.

At least for now.

“So you really don’t know where he is?” Theo asks once he catches up to me on the sidewalk. We’re heading toward the center of this tiny, Pinterest-worthy town.

“No,” I admit.

He lets out a breath that seems to verge on panic. “And we’re two hours from the wedding. Great. This can’t end badly at all.”

“With that attitude it might,” I reply. “We’ll find him. Does Carmilla know?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to disturb her. She was already stressed out of her mind because of this wedding yesterday.”

That makes two of them, then. Weddings just seem like awful affairs. I don’t understand why anyone would want to volunteer to go through one. So Carmilla isn’t going to be any help, either. That reallydoesleave the two of us to handle it quietly. I’m quite sure we won’t find Rhett at the bar, but I don’t know where else to start, and everything I know about detective novels states that you have to retrace your steps to find the missing person.

I hope they aren’t wrong.

In the storefront windows as we pass them, we look like a pair of misfits in an otherwise quaint and charming little town. People glance at us as we pass—I guess it isn’t every day retired golfers see a woman in a sparkly silver jumpsuit, mascara smudged around her eyes, marching through their town like she’s on a mission from God. It’s not the first timeI’ve been seen in public looking like last night’s hell, but Theo? I’m surprised he looks even the littlest bit out of sorts, his lilac button-down rumpled, halfway unbuttoned until he fixes it in the window of a boutique and rakes his fingers through his coppery-red hair to tame it down. It’s thick, and soft, and I remember running my hands through it ... in New Orleans?

It had to be.

He catches me staring in the reflection, and I quickly look away, a blush rising on my cheeks. I feel him stare at me through our reflection a moment longer, his soft green eyes studying me with a sort of peculiarity that I can’t quite put a finger on.

“I bet you think I’m a mess, huh,” I tell his reflection, and he quickly averts his gaze.

“No ... Well,Ididn’t lose my half of the wedding party ...”

I roll my eyes. “Oh yes, because Theo Luck is perfect; how can I forget? Perfect hair, perfect clothes—well, not right now, but usually—perfect teeth, perfect everything. You probably have a pretty perfect job, too. Women are probably tripping over themselves to date you.”

He barked a laugh. “I assure you, they are not.”

“Why?”

“That’s a rude question.”

“So was asking me to kiss you yesterday,” I reply. The next storefront has painted windows advertising BIGGESTBLOWOUTSALEOFTHESUMMER, and mercifully my reflection disappears.

“I . . . didn’t realize.”

“Ah. And I guess you never realized that maybe you could’ve called me in the last few months, or—I don’t know. Sent me a text? But oh, no, of course not, I was just another one of your one-night stands.”

He catches up with me. “I didn’t know what to say—Audrey, wait. Just wait.” He grabs me by the hand gently, but I quickly slip my fingers out of his grip.

I tell him, my hand tingling from where he touched me, “‘Hello’ would’ve been a nice start, Theo. Even if you don’t like me, we’re going to be in each other’s lives for however long our best friends are going to be married, and I hope that’s a very long time. Forever, probably.”

“Probably,” he agrees. “I just ...”

“We’re here,” I announce, pointing to the red painted door with a neon cowboy sign hanging from the glass panes, and whatever he was about to say he swallows and follows me inside.

Ye-Haute is a tiny hole-in-the-wall squeezed between two swanky restaurants, both of which are just turning down their chairs and opening for the afternoon. The bell above the bar jingles as we step inside, and the pungent smell of disinfectant and fried dough assaults my senses so viciously my hangover threatens to make me gag.

I must freeze in my tracks, because Theo places a steadying hand on the base of my spine. His hand is warm, his touch gentle yet firm, and it grounds me long enough to realize that he is, in fact,touching my back. I quickly lurch forward.

The bartender behind the mahogany bar looks up from prepping glasses for the night, and their face darkens when they see me. “We’re not open yet,” they say severely. “And I’d rather you not come back here anyway.”

I give a start. “Whoa, now. What did I do?”

They scoff, rolling their eyes. Their lip ring flashes in the low purple neon of a YEOLDEBOOTYsign. “Whatdidn’tyou do? First you come in here, demanding drinks, and then you start aLegally Blondesing-along—”

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