Chapter 41 Knox #2
He chews with effort. Swallows. "Maggie. What is this?"
"Cookies." Her smile doesn't waver. "I followed my labels."
Nash picks one up, sniffs it, and sets it back down. "That smells like it's a threat."
Kyle takes a bite, coughs, and keeps eating. "It's not... bad. It's just wrong."
Malachi holds one up, studies it, looks at Maggie. "You did this on purpose."
"I used the ingredients in my kitchen." She folds the dish towel over her shoulder. "If the labels were wrong, that's someone else's problem."
James takes a cookie. Eats the whole thing without flinching. "I deserve this."
"Yes, you do," Maggie says. "Have another."
The women don't touch the tray. Darla smirks into her water. Candace takes a photo. Ruby mouths "legend" at Maggie from across the room.
I'm posted up at the bar, beer in hand, when the door opens.
Sloane walks in. Wearing teal dinosaur scrubs. T. rexes in nurse caps across every inch of fabric. Hair still up from her shift, a stethoscope slung around her neck because she forgot to take it off. Sneakers. No makeup. Twelve hours on her feet, and she still walks in with her chin up.
She looks ridiculous. She looks incredible. My brain shorts out for a full second. She catches me staring and her eyes narrow.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face said it."
"My face is just my face."
"Your face is looking at me the way you look at me when I'm wearing nothing."
"Same energy." I set my beer on the bar and close the distance, hand finding her hip, thumb pressing into the curve above the dinosaur-printed waistband. "You wore them."
"I wore them because you left me no choice. Every set, Knox. Every single one."
"You could have called in sick."
"I don't call in sick."
"You chose commitment."
She steps closer, chin tilted up. "You want to make fun of me, do it to my face."
Dipping my head, I move my mouth near her ear. "I'm not making fun of you. I'm trying not to drag you down the hall."
She stills. Her eyes flick toward the hallway, back. "You wouldn't."
"Try me."
She shoves my chest. I don't move. My hand stays on her hip, thumb tracing the seam above the waistband.
"You're impossible," she says, but her voice has gone low and warm.
"You married me."
Ruby's voice cuts across the room. "Sloane. What are you wearing?"
Sloane turns, arms spread. "Ask him." She jerks her chin at me.
The room erupts. Ruby cackles until she has to grip the pool table. Darla wheezes. Candace presses her lips together, fighting it. Maggie claps both hands over her mouth. Frankie tilts her head, studying the print with genuine artistic assessment.
"T. rexes in nurse hats," Frankie says. "That's actually impressive."
"A patient gave me a sticker," Sloane says flatly. "A five-year-old, dead serious, stuck it on my shoulder and said, 'You're Dino-mite.' I still have it on." She turns to show the sparkly sticker.
I pull her back by the waist. She lets me, leaning into my chest. My chin rests on her shoulder. The T. rex pattern is soft under my fingers. I trace one of the little nurse caps with my thumb.
"Stop petting the dinosaurs," she mutters.
"Can't."
Something in me unclenches. My shoulders drop. The volume spreads out, loses its edge. Food circulates. Maggie's set up trays along the bar top.
Ruby ducks behind the bar, plugs her phone into the aux, and hits shuffle on her playlist. Tom Jones fills the clubhouse at full volume.
"What's new, pussycat? Whoa-oh-oh-oh..." Ruby frowns. Skips to the next track. "What's new, pussycat? Whoa-oh-oh-oh..." Her finger hovers. She skips again. "What's new, pussycat? Whoa-oh-oh-oh..."
The room goes quiet. Ruby scrolls through her playlist. Her thumb moves faster. Stops. Her chin lifts.
"Every song," she says. Her voice is level. Too level. "Every single song on my playlist is 'What's New Pussycat' by Tom Jones."
Nash takes a very long sip of his beer.
Ruby rips the aux cord out of the wall. Tom Jones dies mid-whoa. She scans the room, eyes landing on each of us. East studies the ceiling. I examine my beer. Nash hasn't blinked.
"I will find out who did this," she says to nobody in particular. "And when I do, it will be biblical."
Kyle, from the far end of the bar: "Have you tried restarting your phone?"
Ruby turns to him with the measured precision of a turret locking onto a target. Kyle retreats behind Maggie. The women keep exchanging looks. Ruby's smile has teeth. Candace is too quiet.
Maggie speaks first. Calm, deliberate, terrifying. "Now that you've all tasted what happens when someone touches my kitchen. Three pot roasts, James. You're eating three."
James, mid-bite on his second cookie. "That's fair."
"And nobody goes near my spice rack again. Ever."
"Yes, ma'am," East says, grimacing from the cookie.
"That includes you." She points at me. "I know you were the lookout."
I hold up both hands. She's not wrong.
Ruby folds her arms. "Forty-seven songs, Knox. I want a name."
I keep my face neutral. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Forty-seven copies of Tom Jones. On my playlist. You watched me discover it and didn't flinch."
"I was hydrating."
"You were enjoying it."
"I was hydrating."
Ruby's eyes slide to Nash. "You. You were too calm about this."
"I'm always calm."
"You're calm because you did it." She steps closer. "I can feel it."
Nash doesn't blink. "Feelings aren't evidence."
Darla clears her throat. "I'd like to discuss the shrine."
East grins. "I don't know what you mean."
"You wrapped my car in your face."
"That doesn't sound like me."
"Three people honked on the way here. An old woman gave me a thumbs up. A teenager took a photo."
East just grins. Darla stares at him until Kyle shifts his weight.
"I'm going to kill you."
"But you drove it here."
Darla pauses. "The bobblehead stays."
East pumps his fist. "Knew it."
"The rest comes off tomorrow."
"Fair."
Candace has been silent through all of this. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a rubber duck. Sets it on the bar. Another from her jacket pocket. A third from her water bottle. Three ducks in a row, staring at the room.
"There were six in my car," she says. "Four in my locker. One in my gym bag. One somehow inside my sealed water bottle." Her voice is calm in a way that suggests significant internal violence. "Would anyone care to explain?"
East examines his nails. "Ducks migrate. It's natural."
"Natural."
"It's a well-documented phenomenon."
Kyle, from somewhere near the food. "I can confirm. Ducks are migratory."
Candace turns to him. "Kyle." He goes pale. His hand drifts to the lanyard around his neck and tucks it inside his shirt. "You're wearing a lanyard that says Prank War Compliance Officer."
"I was holding it for someone."
Malachi, beside Candace, rubs his jaw. His mouth twitches. "The ducks are concerning."
"The ducks," Candace says, "are just the ones I've found so far."
She turns toward the bar. Maggie's trays are spread across the top, but Candace is looking past them. She lifts a napkin holder. A rubber duck stares back. Her hand stills. She moves the cocktail shaker. Two more. She leans over the bar and looks down. The silence that follows is surgical.
Every shelf. Between every bottle. Lined up along the rail, a tiny yellow army. Stacked in the glass racks. Tucked into the ice well. Sitting in rows where the clean glasses should be. Hundreds of them. Identical. Smug. Watching her with painted black eyes.
Candace straightens. Her face is perfectly composed. Her knuckles whiten on the edge of the bar.
"How many?" she says. East doesn't answer fast enough. "How. Many."
"Roughly three hundred," Kyle offers from a safe distance. "Give or take. I lost count around two-thirty."
Ruby is bent double, wheezing. Darla has tears running down her face. Maggie presses both hands to her mouth. Sloane shakes against my chest, silent laughter vibrating through the dinosaur scrubs into my ribs.
Malachi looks at the bar. Looks at Candace. Looks at the bar again. "That's a lot of ducks," he says.
"That is three hundred rubber ducks in my bar," Candace says, each word measured.
"Our bar," Malachi corrects mildly.
"It's my bar and you know it."
He doesn't argue.
East finally speaks, arms folded, grin wide. "For the record, we didn't touch your liquor."
"You put a duck in the ice well."
"It was swimming. It's what ducks do."
Candace picks up one duck, examines it, and sets it back down with the kind of precision that promises future violence. "I'm keeping them."
"All of them?" Nash asks.
"Every single one. And I'm going to find a use for them that makes each of you deeply uncomfortable."
"That's fair," I say.
Frankie watches the chaos with an amused tilt to her mouth. She hasn't found her prank yet. The magnet sits on the side of her car she won't check until she parallel parks somewhere tight. Could be days. That's the beauty of it.
"You're all children," Frankie says, sipping her water.
"Says the woman who glued a vision board to my whiteboard," Malachi says.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"With a golden retriever."
"Sounds aspirational."
The laughter settles. Looser. Food circulates again.
Someone offers Darla a drink. She shakes her head. "I'm good."
Kyle ducks closer. "Look at you, being responsible. Who are you?"
Darla rolls her eyes. "Please. I'm always responsible."
Kyle points at her cup. "That's water."
"It's hydration. Try it sometime."
East's gaze tracks the exchange from where he's leaned back. He catches Darla's eye. A look passes between them. Silent. Quick. He angles closer. She turns her head.
"Don't," she murmurs, shoulder brushing his arm.
His mouth curves. He lowers his head. "We can keep playing it quiet, or we can stop."
A soft breath. "You've never been good at quiet."
"You keep me honest." His fingers tap his knee. "The girls already know. It's time."
She studies him, eyes warm. Around them, the clubhouse keeps moving. Kyle talking, Ruby laughing, a chair scraping. None of it reaches them.
"Okay," Darla says.
East straightens, voice carrying. "We have news."
Darla's hand drifts to her stomach. "I'm pregnant."
For a heartbeat, no one speaks.
Malachi steps past Darla and stops in front of East, hand coming down hard on his shoulder. "Well." Voice roughened. "That's big news."
East exhales into a laugh. "Yeah. One word for it."
Kyle's reaction comes all at once. "Wait, you're serious?" A grin cracks across his face. "Holy shit."
The room bursts into movement, handshakes and arms around Darla. Voices overlap, stacking on top of each other. Candace squeezes Darla's arm once, unsurprised. I glance at Sloane. She knew.
"Wait," Kyle says, head swiveling. "Did you all know?"
Ruby grins. "Girls' night."
Kyle throws his hands up. "Of course."
Nash mutters, "We're always last."
Frankie's mouth curves. "As it should be."
East lowers himself into the nearest chair. Darla stays close, fingers on his forearm.
"It's twins," he says, calm as anything.
"What?" Kyle blurts.
Ruby laughs, startled. "Twins. You're screwed."
Malachi exhales, a grin tugging at his mouth. "That explains a lot." He claps East's shoulder. Solid.
I step in and grip East's shoulder. "Congratulations. That's big."
He looks up, unhurried. "Yeah."
Voices stack. Questions tumble, Maggie calls out that food's getting cold. The room fills back up. East stays seated, Darla at his side, the two of them unmoving while everyone adjusts around them.
Sloane's knee bumps mine. Her eyes hold me, thoughtful. I squeeze her thigh. She squeezes back. I drag her closer, palm spread across the dinosaur-printed fabric at her waist. My thumb finds the seam and traces it.
"You're still petting the scrubs," she whispers.
"You're still wearing them."
"Because someone stole my real ones."
"Allegedly." I press my mouth to her temple. "You look good."
"I look as though a children's hospital threw up on me."
"You look mine." My grip firms on her waist. "In dinosaurs. Which shouldn't work. But here we are."
She breathes a laugh against my jaw. "You're ridiculous."
"You married ridiculous."
Frankie's phone buzzes on the bar. She glances at the screen, and her face changes. Just a flicker. There and gone, smoothed over before anyone else spots it. She pockets the phone, murmurs something to Candace about needing air, and slips out the side door.
I track her without turning my head. Thirty seconds later, through the window, I catch the shape of her crossing the lot toward her car. She doesn't get in. She stands beside it, phone pressed to her ear, one hand on the roof. Her other hand is shaking.
Arden materializes from the far side of the building.
He must have been waiting. They talk, close, heads angled toward each other.
Frankie's posture breaks for half a second, shoulders caving before she pulls them straight.
Arden's hand finds the back of her neck, holds for a second, drops.
He walks toward his bike, and she walks back toward the door.
By the time she steps inside, her face gives nothing away. She picks up her water and takes a sip, settling back into the noise without a ripple.
Nobody noticed. I did.
Sloane moves beside me, her grip tightening on my thigh. She's tracking Frankie too. Caught the same white-knuckled hold on the water bottle, the face wiped clean a beat too fast.
Sloane looks at me. I look at her.