Page 123 of Mr. Swoony

Tweetie pats my arm, and I do another scan for Eloise, still not seeing her. I call over Bodhi and the Falcon’s mascot.

“Do you know where Eloise is?” I whisper.

Bodhi shakes his head.

“Okay, thanks.”

“Picture, Pinkie.” Lila waves me over, my three best friends standing around her.

“Come on this side of me,” Tweetie says, taking one for the team so he’s next to her.

“Pinkie is my favorite. Can I have him here and then Magic on the other side? Sorry, Daddy and Tweetie, you’re good and all, but these two are my favorites.”

“Understandable.” Gill eyes me to get the fuck over to the group because people are griping about it taking so long.

“No offense taken. We’re happy to step to the outside.” Daddy holds up his hands, an unimpressed look on his face as Magic reluctantly takes the spot on Lila’s other side.

I hear laughing and see the girls come back into the room, carrying on with coffees and treats in their hands. I wait for Eloise to look up, but she doesn’t, so I walk over to the group and slide between Tweetie and Lila. She puts her hand around my waist and tugs Magic and me closer to her.

“Fucking hell,” Rowan murmurs.

“Isn’t this fun?” Tweetie says.

“Take the picture, Gill,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Oh, it turned off,” Gill says and looks at the phone as if it’s the dashboard of a space shuttle.

Lila goes over to fix the phone, and finally Kyleigh looks at us. I point at Lila’s back and then at Eloise. Kyleigh knocks Eloise’s arm and some coffee spills. She gives Kyleigh a funny look, and my sister tells her to look up.

As soon as she does, I point at the blonde sliding back between Rowan and me. Eloise narrows her eyes because I don’t think she ever got that good of a look at Lila. Now that Lila is a blonde, it’s probably harder to figure out.

“Anytime now, Gill.” Tweetie squeezes my shoulder like “hang in there, buddy, almost done.”

What feels like a lifetime later, Gill has taken the picture and hands the phone back to Lila.

“You love blondes now, so I dyed my hair. What do you think?” She presses a note into my hand, and I glance down to see an address written on it. “After she goes to bed, come over,” she whispers.

Henry overhears and glances at my hand.

I drop the note on the floor.

“Okay, we’re behind now. Let’s get things moving again,” Gill says.

But all I see is Lila walking toward Eloise as she leaves the roped off area.

“Eloise, come here,” I call.

Gill opens his mouth to object, and Tweetie tells him to read the damn room. Eloise comes over, eyes wide, and I wrap my arm around her waist until Lila is out of view.

“Just stay in the room, okay?” I ask in the nicest way possible, not wanting Eloise to think I’m trying to run her life.

“I think we might need to take some action,” she says.

“You’re right. We’ll go to the police station and file a report once I’m done here.”

She nods and kisses my cheek before she goes back to the girls.

Then I head over to the security guard stationed in the room and ask him to make sure that Lila leaves the building and isn’t allowed back in.

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