Page 75 of The Love Destroyers

“Are we ready to go live again?” she asks, even though the feed has been live the whole time. “Make sure you get my good side, and don’t film my ass from below—it’s not flattering.”

The kid looks freaked out, because she obviously doesn’t realize what’s up, but he nods as if he can rewind time through sheer force of will.

“Great. Three, two, one,action!” she says, then turns on her sweet tea voice. “I’m here at Buchan Brewery with my masked man. Come here, honey,” she says, beckoning me forward. “Don’t be shy for the camera.”

I walk toward her, reminding myself it’s for Emma. All of this is for Emma.

Ellie wraps an arm around my neck, giving me a whiff of Midori that turns my stomach. “We’re here in front of this gorgeous copper kettle, Reeders. What do you think, should I climb it? Life’s an adventure if we make it one, right? Let’s make this a Leap Day to remember.”

Without waiting for any kind of input, she starts up the ladder in her stockinged feet. “I’ve climbed the first rung,” she announces.

The kid looks at me in shock from above the phone, as if to ask,Is she seriously going to announce each rung?

The answer to that isyes.

The mask itches and my head aches, andI’m doing this for Emma.

Ellie makes it five rungs before she starts to slip.

“A little slippery here, Reeders,” she says with a shaky laugh, then takes another two steps. She’s nearly to the top. What’s she going to do when she gets there? Sit on it?

“Eight,” she says, and then her stockinged feet slip on the slick metal, and she falls in an inelegant tumble that has me lunging forward to catch her.

I do, but I trip over the rubber mat in my haste to get to her, and land hard. Pain bursts in my side. Shit. I think I might have cracked a rib. Ellie scrabbles to hold onto me—and before I know what’s happening or why or how, my mask has come off.

“Buchan boy,” Ellie shouts, looking over my shoulder at him. “Did you get that? My masked man saved me!”

“Yes,” he says as he pads over. I’m amused to see her shoes are still clutched in his other hand. “Yeah. It’s still running.” Shifting his gaze to me, he says, “Do you…uh…need medical help?”

Now he asks.

I hear an uproar from inside of the tasting room. Someone shouts, glass cracks, and a woman screams. As much as we all have our ego, I’m pretty certain it has nothing to do with my mishap. A few seconds later, a harried woman rushes into the room. “Otis, I need you. There’s a sk—”

She cuts herself off when she notices me lying on the floor, because my mask is pushed up, and we know each other.

It’s Bad Luck Sophie.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EMMA

“This is really cramping my style,” Nicole says with a sigh over the phone line. “I arranged for a petting zoo to be set up in the beer garden out back. Anill-temperedpetting zoo. I mean, yes, it was startlingly easy to convince that dumb kid to let me do it. All it required was a fifty-dollar bill and a six pack, and he works at a brewery, for Christ’s sake. But it feels like a whole lot of work for nothing, and now the owners aresuperpissed at me because a skunk escaped into the tasting room. I mean, you think they’d be grateful that something interesting actually happened. How entertaining is it to sit around and watch other people get sloshed? But Seamus and Ellie didn’t even see the petting so. They didn’t make it to the end of the private tour. The good news is that she had me take dozens of photos and videos when they first got here, and I was able to clone her phone. We’ve got her files. If she’s got something good on there, it's ours.”

“That’s great,” I say, not really able to feel enthusiastic about it right now. “But Seamus is in the emergency room again?” I ask, my heart beating fast. I’m brought back to that moment earlier this week—Seamus, laid out flat on the maroon carpet in my father’s study. The study that still has a hole in its wall from our timely rescue of Shadow.

I don’t like that he’s gotten hurt again.

I definitely don’t like that it’s on my account.

“Yup. Ellie, too, though. She’s been livestreaming everything. She keeps saying ‘hashtag I leaped for love.’ Seamus looks pissed. So do the people from the brewery.”

“They went to the emergency room with him?” I ask, before catching on. “Oh, liability issues. They think he’s going to sue. You know, he’d probably win.”

“Sell your services on your own time, you sexy swindler. But the good news is that you probably have plenty of time to search Ellie’s room. And now we know there might actually be something good in there.”

Seamus had sent us a text saying so. He hadn’t included anything about his potentially cracked rib, but I guess I had Nicole for that.

A sense of misgiving throbs through me.

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