Page 74 of The Love Destroyers

“I still think it’s a bad idea, for the record,” I tell Ellie. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Are you implying I’m drunk?” she replies belligerently.

“Yes,” I say. “You’re not walking in a straight line, you had three Midori sours, multiple samples of beers that don’t taste like beer, and five minutes ago you asked if it was beer before alcohol or alcohol before beer that put a person in the clear. You should go back to the hotel to sleep it off.”

She gives me a furious look as she stalks toward the copper kettle—and proceeds to bang into the side, conking her head, because she’s staring at me.

The guy who works here looks about ready to shit his pants, but he hurries over with her shoes still in his hand. “Uh, are you okay, ma’am? Are you—”

“Donotdrop those shoes,” she says. “They can’t touch the floor.”

He looks confused, understandably, but he nods ten times as she turns to glare at me. “You’re an assistant, Alfie. Your place is to do what I tell you to do. Do you have the camera ready? Make it look good. Or else I’ll be breaking you too. I’m sorry to take that tone with you, but I believe in people doing their jobs, and assistant’s job is to assist.”

Sighing, I say, “You haven’t given me your phone.”

If she’s chagrined, it doesn’t show. She tugs it out of her purse and hands it to me. “Make sure to get my left profile. The left is the best.”

The staircase is on the opposite side of the kettle, but I’m not inclined to point it out. She’d probably ask Otis to move it so we can get her good side on film, and the kid looks so desperate for approval, he’d probably try.

“Sure,” I say. “Let’s get this over with.”

Because I doubt she’s going to give me anything good while she’s focused on making a video. It’s not exactly an atmosphere for confessions.

She climbs three rungs of the ladder, glances at me, then says, “Actually, you should livestream this. Oooh, yes, I want you to livestream this. People need to know how much fun we’re having. Jeffrey will see that I don’t need some middle-aged bore cutting into my good time.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I say again.

“You’re not paid to think,” she replies, her tone increasingly belligerent. “Remember? You’re paid to do what I tell you to do.”

Actually, I’m being paid to do what Nicole tells me to do—and my only directives are to keep Ellie busy and keep her talking, so I guess it doesn’t matter if she makes an ass of herself on camera. I felt a little bad for her earlier, crappy personality aside, but I’m not her babysitter. If things go wrong for her in front of her precious audience, she’ll have no one to blame but herself.

The kid shakes his head subtly in my peripheral vision, but he’s too accommodating for his own good. That token objection is all he provides.

“Let’s give her what she wants, chief,” I say, turning on the livestream and aiming the camera on Ellie.

“Let them know what you’re up to,” I say.

“Reeders,” she croons, suddenly all sunshine and sweet tea, “I’m here at Buchan Brewery—”

“Buchanan,” the kid says—and is skewered with a look that has five-inch nails.

“Actually,youtake the camera, Buchan Employee. I want my fans to see my beautiful masked man. They’ll want to officially meet him”

Fantastic.

The kid hurries up to me to claim the phone, the flop sweat under his arms having gotten so bad it’s almost joined in the front. He smells like fear and corn chips, seasoned with hops.

“We don’t need to do this,” I comment. “I doubt it’ll end well for anyone.”

“The customer is always right,” he parrots in a shell-shocked voice as he takes the phone from me—and immediately turns it on me.

I’ve worked in customer service for years, so I know for a fact that’s not true. The vast majority of the time, the customer isnotright. People come in for a tire rotation when no amountof rotation in the universe is going to get them what they need—new tires. People insist they don’t need a new air filter, even if theirs has been reduced to Swiss cheese. There’s a reason they came to you and didn’t do it themselves…

Ellie doesn’t know anything about beer or kettles, and she shouldn’t be climbing up the side of one. But this guy’s clearly scared of Ellie and inclined to do whatever she asks.

At least this is taking time. It’s possible that whatever Ellie has on Jeffrey is hidden in her hotel room, and if it is, then maybe I’m giving Emma what she needs—time to search. Hundreds of hours of time, it feels like, even though it’s probably been less than two.

I back away from the camera, wave to it, and gesture him over to Ellie.

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