Page 90 of Happily Never After

She nodded, then pulled back. He swiped a finger underneath her eyes. His expression was cloudy, but he wasn’t yelling at her anymore. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Her hand twitched, but she stayed where she was. Even if that was Brad texting her with a preemptive decision, it wasn’t worth looking. If she messed this up, she could lose much more than her business.

“Can I help with dinner?” she asked.

Luke put the mallet in the sink full of soapy water. “That depends, are you planning to stick around or are you going to go spy on someone else?”

“Ha-ha.” She elbowed him and picked up an onion. Anything to distract from her imminent firing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

To Do:

- Grovel

- Research bankruptcy

- Be a better girlfriend

“You looklike you haven’t slept in a year,” Mindy said as she pulled the car out of the driveway.

Claire yawned and flipped the mirror down. Her new under-eye concealer was being tested to its limits today. Since there was nothing she could do about the Brad situation, she had spent most of the night working on the plan for the men’s rights conference. Thirty minutes of sleep was better than nothing, wasn’t it?

“It’s probably a good thing I didn’t sleep much last night. There is so much stress in my body right now I probably would have just ended up sleepwalking to a vegan restaurant and arming myself with English cucumbers. Shit!” She slapped her forehead.

“What?” Mindy shot her some side eye as she turned left down a residential street. The park they passed needed a fresh coat of paint on the playground and some grass seed, but the walking path was lovely.

“I forgot the gift basket. I was so worried about my apology note that I forgot the good stuff.” She had raided Luke’s liquor cabinet after he had gone back to bed and found an unopened bottle of Mount Gay Rum. She tucked it in a basket she had found underneath one of Luke’s cabinets along with emergency snacks she had brought from Pennsylvania—beef jerky, Middleswarth chips, and Herlocher’s Dipping Mustard.

Mindy shook her head and swung the car into the parking lot between a holistic yoga studio and a turquoise building with a sign that read “Psychic Readings by Clementine.” It was a good thing they had left with plenty of time. “As excited as I am to hear your plan about the conference, you need to sleep. Remember last year when you drove a car five miles while sleepwalking? Avoiding sleep altogether is just going to make it worse. Remind me to install a padlock on your door when we get home.”

Claire shrugged. “I just couldn’t sleep. With everything up in the air and the conference. And then there’s this fact that I ruined everything and doomed our business and the shelter and my relationship and?—”

Mindy reached over and touched Claire’s face. Then she smacked it lightly, keeping her eyes on the road. “Stop it.”

Claire touched the cheek Mindy had slapped. “Stop what? Feeling things?”

“No, thinking that everything is doomed. We’re not doomed. You’re just stressed. We’ll turn on the charm and Brad will keep us on. We’re going to throw the biggest, splashiest, most romantic proposal anyone has ever seen. And we’re going to stake out that convention, find Professor Taylor, and follow himwherever he goes. Then we’re going to kick ESA’s ass for burning down our office, hire an amazing person to help run things out here, and go home and get back to normal.”

Normal. Could things ever really be normal?

“I hope so. Also, don’t you think it was kind of dumb to schedule this interview right after our meeting with Brad? What if he fires us? We can’t hire someone if our West Coast dreams are dead.”

Mindy shook her head. “We don’t need Brad. We are scrappy and resourceful. If he fires us, we’ll find an even bigger Hollywood figure and rub it in his stupid face. You know I slipped into D. Nasty’s Instagram DMs offering our services. He’s been dating Krystal Blake for almost two years.”

“Who or what is D. Nasty?”

“Come on, you’ve heard his songs.Slam Dunk Your Ass, Beat Booty, Nic Cage’s Wooden Leg…”

As Mindy turned back toward Luke’s house, something caught Claire’s eye. What the hell was she looking at?

“Mindy?”

“And another thing—” Mindy plowed on. Claire slapped at her arm and pointed. “What?”

“Is somebody climbing our drainpipe?”

The engine whined and the car lurched forward. “Not today, Satan.” Mindy hunched up against the steering wheel as they sped down the residential street. Claire gripped the oh shit handle.

Her heart was in her throat. Was it ESA? Were they going after Luke? Her hand wrapped around her Taser. It was hard to tell from this distance, but there was definitely a fluorescent pink blob that was out of place.

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