Chapter 19
Present Day
Daphne knocks on my hotel room door with Cafe Maggie coffee in one hand and a bag of croissants in the other. Against all odds, she’s wearing yesterday’s crochet project. “Would you believe me if I told you I saw a dead body on campus this morning?”
“I’m going to need the coffee.” I reach for the cup as she breezes past me and paces the room. “Start from the beginning.” It’s barely seven a.m., and I slept like shit.
“My presentation is in two hours, and I want to talk about starting your book with a strong hook.”
“And telling everyone you saw a dead body will be your strong hook?”
“I’ll come in a few minutes late, crying hysterically, stumble to the microphone, and yell that someone needs to call the police.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Too much?”
“Depends, are you a good actor?” I take a sip of my drink, and my eyes widen in surprise.
“Peanut butter mocha,” Daphne says by way of explanation. “The pretty barista talked me into it. But to answer your question, I played Satine in my college’s production of Moulin Rouge!, and I can cry on demand.”
“Then you have to do it.”
She sits on the still-made bed next to mine and bites into a croissant. “How was last night?”
“A shit show.”
Her face falls. “I should have been there.”
I shake my head, letting her off the hook. “It’s not your fault; it’s his. I just— I really— He’s so— Why do I keep giving him the opportunity to hurt me?” I fumble my way through the question, my once-strong command of the English language nowhere to be found.
Her mouth opens in a small O of surprise. “West?”
“Who else?”
“He hurt you?” Seeing my pointed stare, she amends her question. “Recently?” Daphne studies me curiously before straightening and brushing croissant crumbs off her lap. “What happened? Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”
I drop my head into my hands, unsure if I have the emotional wherewithal to recount the circumstances that led from the bar to soft serve covered in sprinkles to my knees around West’s waist and my dignity in tatters. “It was bad, and then it was…surprising, and then it was horrible.”
She squeezes my hand gently. “I know you hate exposition, but I do need more than that.”
“He wore a Fox Caldwell T-shirt to the bar.”
She sits back in surprise. “Huh.”
“I expected a little more righteous indignation.”
She shrugs. “Couldn’t that have been his way of, I don’t know, being supportive?”
“He was screwing with me.”
“Like you’re screwing with him?”
“Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not. What happened next?”
“As payback for the shirt, I read a passage from his book at the open mic.”
She wrinkles her nose. “How is that payback?”
“If you knew him, you’d understand.”
“If you say so.” Every syllable is heavy with skepticism. “Was that the surprising part?”
“No. That happened later.”
“Go on.”
“After we left the bar—”
Her eyes widen. “You left together?”
I nod. “After we left the bar, he— Well, no, if we’re being pedantic about it, I kissed him.” Daphne’s jaw drops. I hold my hands up before the questions building in her mind explode all over the room. “It was a horrible idea that I regretted immediately.”
She exhales, probably relieved that she won’t have to talk me through my insanity. “The kiss was bad?”
I groan inwardly. “I wish it was.”
“That’s a lot to process, Mars.”
“I can’t. Not yet. If you could let this drop for now, I’d appreciate it,” I say with a level of cool detachment that I don’t feel.
She nods, casting her eyes about the room for a change of subject. “Remind me what his book is about?”
I roll my eyes. It’s not the hard pivot I was hoping for, but it’ll do.
“Oh god, I don’t even know.” I rack my brain for the passage I read last night, but that’s when I was at my tipsiest, and I can’t remember anything other than a man, a desert, and a vague sense of familiarity that probably comes from knowing West’s voice so well. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
I scan the room for my bag from last night, but I don’t see it on the nightstand or the desk by the window. I can’t find it anywhere. “We have a problem.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I lost my bag.” I hadn’t noticed because my phone and room key were in the pocket of my dress and I was so emotional coming back, but I’ve lost my wallet with my ID and credit cards. My conference badge and credentials. My Kindle. The book West signed for me.
“Did you leave it at the bar?”
I run my hand through my hair and attempt to recall the non-West events of last night. “Maybe? Probably? I’ll stop by later and check.”
“We have time now. I’ll come with you.”
“But your presentation—”
“Isn’t until nine. We’ll be fine.”
I shoot her a grateful smile as I make my way to the bathroom to change. “Thanks. You can help me brainstorm ways to screw up West’s panel this morning.”
“You’re still doing that?”
I lean out of the bathroom. “Have you had a personality transplant since yesterday? What is going on?”
She shakes her head and then surveys me with a critical eye. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
I look at my Girls Just Wanna Have Books T-shirt. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“I crocheted this dress that would look really cute—”
I disappear back into the bathroom.
Unbothered, she calls through the door. “I assume you were awake devising a sabotage plan all night?”
I should have been, but instead I spent the night tossing and turning, stuck between awake and asleep, my mind wandering through my past, visions of West and me disappearing before they fully materialized.
“I have one vague idea, but I don’t know if it’s possible. I’d need to recruit help.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Bright lights glow behind Gentle Ben’s locked door. Ignoring the Closed sign and the empty dining room, I knock until a manager answers. She has a stack of receipts in one hand and a pen tucked behind her ear. “We open at nine.”
“I think I left my bag here last night. Would you mind checking the lost and found?”
“What does it look like?” she asks as we follow her to the bar.
“Tote bag. Covered in books,” I say as she crouches down to look in a small box.
She laughs. “You might have to be more specific.”
“It’s black-and-white. It says ‘Waterstones’ on it.”
“Bingo!”
I open the bag and exhale an immediate sigh of relief when I see my wallet and Kindle. I take inventory as I stack my possessions on a barstool. Sunglasses, conference badge, two paperbacks, a notebook, three pens, and a handful of snacks.
A pit grows in my stomach. “I’m missing a book.”
“You sure?” She eyes the books already on the counter.
“Yes. It’s a hardcover. It has oranges on the spine.”
She shrugs.
I lean over the counter, trying to see into the box. “Can you check again?”
She pulls the box to the bar top and lets me look through it myself. “I know it was here,” I insist, my eyes combing through the room and across the small stage. “Can I check the rooftop?”
I search every inch of Gentle Ben’s, including the restrooms. Daphne watches me with a curious expression, checking her watch every few minutes.
She’s getting impatient, but I can’t bring myself to stop.
I bite my lower lip, trying to replay last night in my mind.
I was reading from the book, West left, and I ran after him.
I must have dropped it on the stage or put it on the corner of a table on my way out.
“You can get a new one today,” Daphne says.
“I want that one.” I’d sooner publish a first draft than ask West to sign another book for me, and for some reason I can’t let this one go. “What if someone else finds it and sees my name in it?”
Daphne represses an amused smile.
“Never mind. I just want it.” The manager is sitting in front of a pile of receipts at the corner table, and she looks less than thrilled when I approach her. “Is there anywhere else it could be? Anyone else who would know?”
She sighs. “I have a bartender who’s one of those BookTok girls. She might have borrowed it from the lost and found.”
“When can I talk to her?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re persistent, aren’t you? Evie isn’t on the schedule today, but you can come back tomorrow. During business hours.”
Strange amount of attitude for someone who just admitted that her employee might be stealing from the lost and found. I smother the fluttery panic that is bouncing off the walls of my stomach. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
The sky is overcast as we leave the bar and walk to the festival. Daphne throws me what she thinks are stealthy sideways glances the entire time. “Is everything okay?”
“Peachy.”
She raises her brows. “Want to try a more believable answer?”
“Sorry.” I blow out a breath and try to shake off my inexplicable anxiety. “Thanks for coming with me. Are you ready for your performance? Do you have a description of the dead body locked and loaded?”
She glances at our feet, only to look back at me seconds later, tears pooling in her eyes. When the first one slides down her cheek, she swipes it away and gives me a self-satisfied smile. “How’d I do?”
“You’re going to kill it, Daph. I’ll have to sneak out the back of your talk ten minutes early to make it to West’s panel, though.”
“Text me the play-by-play.”
“Your friend agreed to help?” I ask, reviewing the plan in my head. Of everything I’ve done to ruin West’s weekend, this is the one thing most likely to backfire, but Daphne insists her friend is down to help. From what I understand, she lives in Tucson and is big in the improv scene.
“I had to promise signed copies of Torched for her nieces, but yes, she’s down to help.”
“Thank you. Thank her.”
Daphne eyes me pensively. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? The last time you let yourself get distracted by him, it ended pretty badly for you.”
“I’m not scared of him. He should be scared of me and my revenge arc.”
A beat of silence.
“Right?” I prompt.
Daphne throws her head back and laughs. “Yes, Margot, you’re very scary.”