Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Clay
I’m not hiding from Louisa, but the walls at Gallo’s feel too close, and I can’t risk raising suspicions by going back to any of the regional casinos so soon.
So I spend the morning driving aimlessly down highways that wind around lakes.
I get lost thanks to someone reprogramming my GPS in Croatian, but fixing that gives me something to do.
Opening up to her was a mistake. She’s reading too much into it.
Does she expect me to want to stay here?
To run a dive bar together in the middle of nowhere until we’re old enough to retire?
If it were just for the summer, maybe we could make it work, but Louisa wants forever.
She deserves someone who can give that to her.
That’s not me. I can’t be like Benji.
So why does holding on to that conviction feel like a tired habit?
A little voice in the back of my head insists it’s the money. Louisa knows I have more of it than she might have first suspected. She wants to get her hands on it by seducing me.
I won’t believe it, but her intentions don’t change anything. I rejected her, and I need to stick to that decision.
I’m not confident that I can, which is why I can’t be at Gallo’s right now.
I end up at Happy Lake simply because it isn’t Gallo’s. My car turns down the private road to Gina’s cabin, and I park in the shade under some trees.
There’s no one around. I sit on a log bench next to the cold campfire, oddly disappointed, even though I don’t want to talk about this to Briar or Gina or, god forbid, Benji.
The air is muggy, and it’s oppressively hot under the sun. I’m sweaty, uncomfortable, and about to crawl out of my skin, so after a few minutes, I get up and head down the trail behind the RV. It’s a few degrees cooler under the canopy of the trees.
The trail ends ten minutes later at the back of a large shed. Gina’s truck is parked on a dirt road that also terminates at the building, and from inside, a loud power tool buzzes.
Milo then. This must be his workshop, where he does whatever it is he does with wood.
The door is unlocked, so I let myself into the small office at the front of the building.
There’s a high-quality wood desk and some nice-looking shelves along with some cheap file cabinets, but that’s not as interesting as the sleeping bag against the wall, or the fact that Briar’s cat is curled up in a ball on the pillow.
One of my past clients had pedigreed show cats, so unfortunately, I have some knowledge of cat breeds.
Briar reluctantly confirmed that Trouble is a Tonkinese.
That reluctance is suspicious. If I cared enough to dig into Briar’s business, I imagine I’d discover the cat isn’t even hers.
She certainly treats the cat more like an inconvenience than a beloved pet.
But Briar doesn’t stick her nose in my business, and I leave her to hers.
The internal door to the workspace is closed—probably to keep the cat out—so I close it behind me after I walk in.
Milo has his back to me, his muscles flexing as he pulls a saw down to cut a piece of wood.
I don’t want to startle him, so I step back to survey the tools hanging from one of the walls, as if I could name any of them other than a hammer and a screwdriver.
It’s a tidy shop. Smells like sawdust. And vanilla beans, courtesy of a reed diffuser sitting on a counter.
Milo’s claim that he has money of his own wasn’t a lie, judging by the sheer number of professional-looking power tools.
There's a little catnip mouse peeking out from under a shelf, and I’m suddenly curious if Milo or the cat brought it in here.
The saw stops, and the irritated grunt as he yanks the cord to unplug it tells me Milo is now aware that I’m here. I finish my perusal, bringing my attention back to him as he turns.
He pushes the safety glasses up into his hair. “Oh.” He sounds surprised, like he’s expecting someone else. Someone looking for her cat, maybe. “What do you want?”
“You made that desk?” I ask, motioning to the office behind me.
He wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. “Yeah.”
“Shelves too?”
He nods.
“You’re good.”
Annoyance crosses his face. “You’re an expert?”
I laugh. “No, but I have expensive tastes, and they look expensive. Unlike the stumps carved into the shapes of bears or eagles that seem so popular around here.” Which is what I imagined him making until two minutes ago.
Milo crosses his arms over his chest. “I already told you, I’m not interested in investors.”
Seeing those tattoos on his muscular arms in this setting puts all the pieces in place. “You were a cam model,” I say in astonishment. The workshop was different, but I’m confident that’s where I know the tattoos from. He hadn’t shown his face on camera, at least not in the one video I saw.
His expression hardens, but there’s something close to panic in his eyes. “Lou told you?”
No. She did not. And I’m definitely not feeling a certain way or wondering how involved Louisa might have been in his online sex work. “A client of mine was one of your fans. We watched you once. I recognized the tattoos.”
He mutters a curse and leans back against the worktable. “So now what? If I don’t launder money for you, you’ll tell her?”
Which her? I doubt Briar would give a shit if he used to jerk off on camera for money. Gina’s naive but open-minded, and anyway, I doubt this would be the thing to end their friendship.
He has to mean his grandmother. She hasn’t yet agreed to sell Happy Lake Lodge to him. From what I’ve heard, he has until she retires at the end of summer to convince her he’s responsible enough to run the lodge and campground.
There’s a pencil on the workbench next to me, and I spin it. “From one former sex worker to another, I won’t tell anyone.”
Milo waits.
The pencil stops spinning.
For fuck’s sake. “I’m not blackmailing you.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
Hiding from Louisa. Obviously. “I want to commission something.”
He snorts.
“A desk,” I continue. “To replace that cheap IKEA one in the office at Gallo’s.” When I’m long gone, I don’t want Louisa to sit at that desk and remember the way we met. Also, she deserves something that wasn’t assembled with an Allen key.
He raises an eyebrow. “And you’re going to pay for it with dirty money?”
“Naturally.” In all honesty, I expect him to refuse flat-out and to tell me, again, to stay away from her.
Insist that I’m no good for her. Maybe threaten me a little.
He threatened to put Benji in a bog even though Gina was only ever a friend.
Milo and Louisa were more, so it stands to reason I should get a bigger threat.
I want that threat.
“Huh,” Milo says after a minute, but he doesn’t elaborate on whatever epiphany he’s reached.
“What?” I ask, irritated that he’d keep this insight to himself.
Milo turns away to unclamp the piece of wood he cut. “You didn’t come here to buy a desk. You’re not here to blackmail me. What do you want?”
Threaten me. “I just told you what I want.”
“There are business cards on the desk. Take one. The website is on it. Fill out the interest form, and I’ll get back to you.”
I don’t move as Milo sets the piece of wood on another worktable and grabs another piece to cut.
“If this is about Lou,” he says eventually as he plugs the saw back in and pulls the safety glasses over his eyes, “she told me to stay out of it.”
“And you’re going to?”
“Lou can take care of herself.”
Christ, she’s not that good at pretending she can take on the world alone. This man should know her well enough to see that. “But Gina couldn’t?”
Milo’s shoulders tense, and for a moment I think he won’t answer. “I was wrong about Gina.”
“You’re wrong about Louisa.” Tell me I’m no good for her. Tell me to stay away.
Milo turns back to his wood. “I’m wrong about everything. Find Benji if you need someone to talk to. I’m busy.”
The saw's noise fills the space. It’s a clear dismissal. I spin the pencil again and wait for it to stop or for Milo to say something, but he doesn’t and I leave, disappointed that I didn’t get what I really wanted.
The cat stretches and yawns as I grab a business card from the desk on my way out.
I will get Louisa a new desk. It’s the least I can do after rejecting her.
The walk back is sweltering. It’s muggy and unpleasant, almost bad enough to make a dip in the lake tempting. I’m nearly to my car when I notice a hammock strung up in the shade. I might as well wait for Briar to finish her shift at the lodge. It will save me a trip back out here to pick her up.
I don’t know why I bother with excuses at this point. I’d rather stay here in a hammock outside than risk running into Louisa alone at Gallo’s.
The hammock sways gently as I climb in and get comfortable.
I must doze off, lulled by the slightest hint of a breeze off the lake. I don’t wake until a deep shadow falls over me.
“What are you doing here?” Briar asks, pushing a strand of fading purple hair out of her face.
“Napping, apparently,” I say, carefully sitting up and swinging my legs over the side. She’s wearing the plain black t-shirt she usually wears when she’s working at Gallo’s, not one of her Happy Lake Lodge staff ones. I yawn. “What time is it?”
“Four-thirty.”
We’re late. Good. “You ready?”
She nods, and we walk to my car. Silence settles comfortably over us as I turn onto the lodge’s access road, and I’m grateful for it. Benji would pepper me with questions and advice, but Briar isn’t interested in my problems. That might be my favorite thing about her.
“Are you two fighting or something?” Briar asks abruptly, proving me entirely wrong about her.
“Goddammit,” I mutter under my breath.
“I just want to know what I’m walking into,” she says, raising her hands. “The vibes were off the other night. You have to be fighting.”
“We’re not fighting.”
“Fucking?”
“Not fucking, either.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“No.”
Briar plows on anyway. “Tell her how you feel.”