Epilogue
“ W hy?” Gray yelled from across the parking lot, drawing my attention that way.
From the irritation in his voice, I’d expected him to be talking to literally anyone other than me, but there he was, standing just outside the driver’s side of his truck, glaring at me.
“Can I help you?” I asked as I bit into a donut since I had no control whenever they were around. At least I’d saved the other eleven for everyone else...for now.
“Every time,” he snapped as he leaned into his truck and came back out with a box of donuts. A sharp laugh left me as he repeated, “ Every time .”
“Not my fault.”
“You can’t let me have just one time where I’m the one bringing them?”
I lifted my box meaningfully. “It’s more donuts. Who cares? And if you wanna blame someone, blame yourself.” I gave him a look daring him to argue with me on this. “If you hadn’t choked, the cases wouldn’t be called Donuts. If they weren’t called Donuts, I wouldn’t crave them whenever we do one.”
“It was one time,” he said, enunciating each word as he reached me.
“And it was enough.” I glanced at the box in his hand, displaying the company’s name, and made a face. “Mine are better.”
“Absolutely not,” he began just as an irritated voice ground out, “They’re donuts. They’re all the same.”
I looked to the side at where Briggs was stalking across the parking lot, coffee in hand.
“He’s joking,” Gray said, even though he sounded like he wasn’t at all sure.
“Who hurt you?” I asked because no donut or donut place was the same. Obviously.
Briggs glared at me as he continued past us, heading for the fully repaired office of Shadow Industries. “Morning meeting in fifteen,” he called over his shoulder, then came to an abrupt stop and turned back to us. “Lainey asked if y’all are coming to Kaia’s birthday.”
I had nothing against kids. I’d been surrounded by little gremlins my entire life, having grown up in one of those families where there were always so many siblings and cousins around, you could never separate them or remember how many there were. But kids’ birthday parties were the worst.
However, I would do absolutely anything for Briggs’ niece. We all would.
Suffering through a one-year-old’s birthday party included.
“She shouldn’t have to ask,” I said as I took another bite of my donut. “I’m an automatic yes to anything for that kid.”
“I’m still stuck on the all-donuts-are-the-same thing,” Gray muttered, his head shaking a little before he gave a nod. “But, yeah. I’m in.”
Briggs dipped his head as he turned back for the building with us trailing behind him.
Gray shifted closer to ask, “How have we known him for over a dozen years, and we’re just finding out that he doesn’t appreciate donuts?”
“I can hear you,” Briggs snapped as he swung open the door, turning his dark glare on us.
“Fair question,” I asked around another bite, giving him a cheesy smile as I stepped into the office and into someone else, nearly knocking her over. A muffled curse left me as I tried steadying the girl between the glazed donut in one hand and the large box filled with more of the same in the other.
“Sorry! So sorry,” she cried out as she flailed, trying to steady herself while simultaneously trying to get away from me. Making her tip even more precariously until either she was going down, or the donuts were.
But, I mean, they were donuts . . .
I took a step back just as she started falling only to be shoved forward by Briggs in his attempt to catch her, forcing the girl’s knee right into my groin.
I lost the donuts somewhere between dropping to the floor and choking on the piece I had in my mouth.
By the time I could focus on what was happening around me again and could breathe somewhat normally, Gray was still laughing hysterically. The girl was kneeling in front of me, apologizing profusely as her hands fluttered all around me without coming in contact, as if I wanted her anywhere near me. And Briggs was seething.
“Ada,” he shouted before pointing at the girl in front of me again. “What are you doing here, Chloe?”
The girl— Chloe —looked between Briggs and me so many times, it might’ve been comical if I hadn’t been dying. “Ada said—” Her face scrunched up in what might’ve been considered exasperation. It was hard to be sure. “Lainey said this might happen...”
“What might happen?” Briggs sneered before yelling for Ada again.
“Ada stopped by this weekend for coffee and to see Lainey’s ring. Which— oh my gosh —good job on that one. Anyway, when she was at our house, she said you’d decided to hire me as her replacement.”
My attention snapped to Briggs because there was no way he was hiring the girl who’d just dropped me and my donuts.
Briggs dragged his hands over his face and through his beard as he took deep, calming breaths. “Is she— Ada ,” he snapped when the woman in question rounded the corner. “We talked about this.”
“We did,” she said with a smile that said Briggs’ anger didn’t faze her in the slightest. “You didn’t listen to me, so I didn’t think it necessary to listen to you. And now I’m officially retiring, so Chloe’s gonna take my place. No need to thank me.”
Briggs edged out a frustrated laugh before looking at the girl who was now standing there, looking only slightly unsure of herself beneath the joy practically bursting from her. “This isn’t about you. I just wasn’t looking for Ada’s replacement, and she keeps forgetting she isn’t in charge of hiring people.”
“Right. Then this is awkward,” Chloe muttered. She gestured to me and gave me an adorably apologetic smile that I instantly hated because it seemed as out of place in that moment as her joy. In that building. In general. “I mean, more than it already was, considering. ..you know...”
“I do,” I ground out.
Her face scrunched up with sympathetic worry that was offset by all that light and excitement. “Sorry. Seriously, that’s...yikes.”
Yeah, not sure yikes covered it.
But I was more concerned that Ada was about to force her way through hiring someone else—this time, a girl who was too happy.
In general, I knew people considered me to be a happy guy, but I liked to think of it as a coping mechanism for what we’d seen overseas and on missions. Didn’t mean I was secretly miserable, or thought everyone else should be too. I knew there were happy people in the world—sometimes annoyingly so. But there was something different about this girl.
Like the joy pouring from her grated on my every nerve ending because, for how genuine it seemed, I was sure it wasn’t. And it made the way she was looking at everyone like the star-eye emoji bother me that much more. Like she’d gotten so used to faking her happiness that she genuinely didn’t know how to be anything else now.
Made me wonder why she’d ever had to.
Made me wonder what else she was that good at faking...hiding.
“Fine,” Briggs said on a sigh, giving in to his argument with Ada that I’d tuned out. With a look at Chloe, he added, “Ada will train you. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Briggs,” I called out when he stormed off the way he always did, like he was perpetually angry with the world and needed to show it in the way he walked. “Briggs, you’re really gonna let Ada hire her?” I asked when I caught up to him in the middle of the main office.
“Ada’s gonna retire no matter what. I’d rather have someone here to replace her.”
“But her ?”
At that, Briggs stopped and turned on me, eyeing me warily. “What’s wrong with Chloe?” he asked after a quick glance toward the front of the office.
“I don’t trust her,” I said without hesitation, so used to responding to his demands since he’d been my leader for so long.
But Briggs just huffed out his version of a laugh. “My fiancée wouldn’t live with her if we couldn’t trust her.”
My head shook as I glanced over my shoulder, noting how Gray was doing the same thing as he walked toward us. “Just something about her I don’t trust,” I finally said.
Gray barked out a laugh when he reached us and finally stopped trying to get another glimpse of the girl. “She kneed you instead of throwing her number and social media handles at you.” He tossed a donut at me. “Of course you don’t trust her.” With a wink directed at us both, he asked, “Cute though, yeah?”
“No,” Briggs said in warning. “Lainey will kill me if you break her friend’s heart.”
He held both his donut box and mine out to the side. “When have I ever done that?”
Briggs rubbed at the back of his neck as he watched Gray head to the break room. With a sigh, he focused on me again. “Whatever your deal is, get over it. I’ve run every check on Chloe—she’s fine.” He waved a hand at me. “But since you’ll probably be watching her like a hawk anyway, do me a favor and keep Gray away from her.”
I nodded as he left even though I had no intention of doing that.
The faster Gray broke her heart, the faster she’d be gone.
Briggs could thank me when I figured out what else this girl was hiding.