Page 127 of Bring You Back

She wipes at her cheeks, sniffs, tucks her hair behind her ear. “I shouldn’t have come here.” She shifts her stare my way. “To you.”

“Reyna. . .”

She turns away from me, her portfolio sliding away with her. She walks out of the house, the slam of the door echoing in my ears.

I could go after her. Ishouldgo after her.

And say what? The truth? The truth sucks. She’s already hurting. Anything more I say or do will just make her hurt worse.

She’s not okay.

I’m not okay.

There’s no weight lifting. Just gaps, vacant space.

I see movement from the corner of my eye, and I look down the hall to see Camille just outside the guest room, leaning against the door frame. She heard every bit of that. A myriad of emotions have settled on her face, all matching my own as Reyna’s question echoes in my head.

Where do we go from here?

This is bigger than us. More than each other.

She’s the first to move, pushing off the frame before disappearing back inside the room. When theclickof the door sounds, I move next—last—shutting myself behind my own door.

None of us are okay.

29

We’re Even Now

Julian

I’m still not okay the next morning. I recommend the wrong board to three different customers and have to backtrack without making it seem like I have no clue what I’m doing. Not even being inside the shop—one of my favorite atmospheres, surrounded by some of my favorite smells, listening to my choice of music—can change my mood. I end up directing everybody who comes in to Jake who has started shooting me a stink eye.

He shouldn’t have turned me down to leave the day I was trying to be a snoop.

This slice of payback is accidental, but hey, it works.

Yeah, man, itstinks.

I laugh to myself, thinking about Camille’s stink eye and what she would say if she was here to see this.If he keeps giving you the stink eye, it’ll start to smell in here.

“Dude.”

Banks’s voice snaps me from those trailing thoughts, and I shake my head, keeping my stare on the papers I have to sort as he approaches the counter. “Your dude’s checked out right now.”

He halts, and I look up right as he spins in place, pinning me with a gawk when he comes to a stop. “Then who the hell are you? And why do you look like my dude?” A grin splits his mouth as he advances, but mine remains in a line.

“Not today, all right?”

“Oh, today,” he says, pointing at me. “You promised to help me get laid.”

It takes me a moment to decipher what the hell he’s talking about until the night at the beach entrance flashes in my head. Reyna hits first, followed by the plans we made, followed by Camille, and I’m back to feeling like shit. They’ve been trying to keep a hold on my thoughts, like they have all night and most of today, and I have to force-shift the focus to Banks, to the bribe I made involving a girl with black-framed glasses.

I chuckle despite myself. “I promised a good word.”

“Yeah, and you haven’t delivered it.”

“What makes you think I haven’t?” My voice is flat and uninterested as I go back to sorting.

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