“I’m not so sure about that. I know you and Josie are the brainiacs, but I’m gifted in matters of the heart.”
The fact that my buddy is saying this with a straight face should alarm the hell out of me.
“I know shit, Pete,” he says with a shrug. “But we’ll worry about all that later. For now, your rep is enough to keep the bastards off Claire’s back. And that’s the most important thing.”
What he’s saying makes a weird kind of sense. If dating me means Claire can get through the day without wearing out the battery on her earpods, then sure, I’m up for it. There are worse fates than spending time with Claire and keeping the assholes at bay.
I’m not going to tell Ollie I’m onboard with his plan, though. His ego’s big enough as it is.
“Back me up here, Pete.”
I turn to see Mickey standing in the doorway. He’s bare-chested, wearing only a very fitted pair of gray joggers and a pirate hat.
“I’m gonna need a little more context before you get an endorsement, bud,” I tell him.
Claire steps out of the room, brushes past Mickey, and walks straight up to me. “You’re my boyfriend for the next ten minutes until I dump your ass, so you need to backmeup here. This calendar needs a theme.”
“It has a theme,” Mickey insists.
“And what’s that?” Claire asks, her hand on her hip. “’Dumb Shit We Found in the Attic’?
“No,” Mickey retorts. “It’s stuff I look hot in. I can’t help it that I look hot in just about everything. Oh, you know what? I think I’ve got a wolf mask in my car. Be right back.”
With that ridiculous pronouncement, Mickey takes off. I don’t pay him much attention though, because I’m still stuck on what Claire just said. “You’re dumping me? Already? Jesus, it’s only been five minutes.”
She shrugs. “What can I say? When you know, you know.”
“Aw, is this your first lovers’ quarrel?” Ollie asks, and we both crack up.
“Not even remotely,” I say.
“It’s gonna be our last, though, because I really am dumping your ass. I don’t know what that shit was about, Ollie, but it’s unnecessary. So what do you say, Pete, is there enough of an audience here tonight, or should I do the deed at Drip tomorrow morning?”
“I’ve done the deed at Drip,” Ollie says. “Oh, shit, different deed. Got it.”
I’m rolling my eyes and deciding when Claire should publicly break my heart, but when Mickey walks back into the lobby with a worried look on his face, I get concerned.
“Dude, you okay? Did somebody take your wolf mask?”
Mickey looks at Claire. “Did you drive here tonight?”
She squints in confusion. “Yeah, I had an interview for a story over in Murraystown, so I took my car. Why?”
“Any chance you drive a white hatchback with a cactus bumper sticker and a license plate that reads THTBTCH?”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice rising as she draws out the word. “Why?”
His face is pained as he holds up his phone. What I see on the screen has my blood boiling.
There’s a bit of a glare from the flash, but the damage to Claire’s vehicle is clear. The wordcunthas been spray-painted in neon green across her back windshield.
My hands ball into fists. “Who the hell would?—”
“There’s more,” Mickey says, swiping to the next photo. This one’s a little harder to spot, but once I see it, I can’t get the image out of my mind. The heat that was raging through me is gone and it’s been replaced by a chill. Some coward used a key to carve the threatfuck around and find outonto the metal surface of Claire’s bumper.
I’m a level headed guy. I’m known for being good in a crisis. Ma’s had enough health issues in the past few years that there’ve been plenty of times I’ve had to stay calm when I wanted to scream or stick my fist through a wall.
As I see the worry and fear in Claire’s eyes, I’m doing my damnedest to summon every ounce of calmness I’ve ever had. She blinks and I watch as in awe as she mentallydons the armor she’s gonna need to deal with this shit. Good thing for her, she’s not handling it alone.
