Page 31 of Best Served Cold

“Where to, gang?” I ask.

Hannah shoots Sophie a sly look from the cramped back seat. “The Ginger Station.”

The Ginger Station is the only ginger beer brewery in town.

Sophie gasps. “No. We can’t just ambush her.”

“We don’t even know who she is,” Hannah says. “So ambushing her would be impossible. But if we happen to meet her…”

“No,” Sophie repeats. “I texted her from that app and my phone. She knows. What she chooses to do with that knowledge is up to her.”

“What if he got to the messages before she saw them?”

She worries at her lips, her gaze out the window, before turning back to Hannah. “I’m not showing up in a wedding dress. She’ll think we’re crazy.”

Hannah shrugs. “Who cares. Maybe we are crazy. Besides, we don’t have to talk to her tonight. It’s an information-gathering mission, and I’d really like some ginger beer.”

“Itisrefreshing,” Otis says. “It tastes like soda, though, so you have to be careful. Grandma Penny drank one of mine by mistake when I got a four-pack. She got really sentimental about this framed baby picture, thinking it was of my dad. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it had come with the frame.”

I glance at Sophie, sensing the nerves radiating from her. “It’s up to you, Sophie. It’s your wedding night.”

Personally, I feel like it’s kind of a bad move to make any part of this night about my brother, however peripherally. But Hannah probably knows Sophie better than I do by now. Maybe she knows Sophie needs this.

One final woman to save.

Maybe I need to see it through too. To undo the harm Jonah has done to other people, since there’s no undoing what he did to me.

She thinks for a moment, then nods, her hair dancing around the shoulders of her dress. “Okay. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER NINE

SOPHIE

Everyone’s staring at me.

Logically, I knew that would happen. I’m wearing a wedding dress, after all. But it didn’t occur to me that if I showed up at a bar with a group, everyone would assume one of the guys was my new spouse.

I’ll admit to being slightly offended that the bartender instantly assumed it was my cousin, in his tuxedo T-shirt, rather than Rob, who seems especially tall and virile tonight. Then again, the bartender is a pretty, dark-haired woman who seems to have a thing for Rob, so maybe it’s wishful thinking on her part.

Or not-so-wishful thinking. He’s single, after all. Maybe he’ll go home with her. Maybe they’ll fall madly in love, and we’ll become the background of their story. The thought stings for reasons I can’t begin to compute.

I’m still chewing on that thought a couple of drinks later, when Hannah comes back from a trip to the ladies’ room with a satisfied smirk on her face.

“I put a photo of him up in the ladies’ room,” she whispers as she slips onto her stool, glancing around to make sure no one’s paying attention.

They are, but mostly to my dress.

“Of Rob?” I ask, distracted.

She frowns at me, her freckled nose wrinkling. “Why would I put up a photo of Rob in the ladies’ room? WelikeRob.”

“We do?” Rob asks, grinning. “I thought the jury was still out. Sophie doesn’t seem convinced.”

I roll my eyes at him, but somehow manage to get distracted by the way his thick hair flops slightly over his eyebrow, as if he’s from some ’90s rom-com and didn’t get the memo that most people choose either long or short, not this relentless, woman-slaying game of in-between.

I realize I’ve been staring at Rob and turn back to Hannah. “Why would you hang up a photo of Jonah? Did you catch him picking his nose?”

“It’s a flyer that says he has STDs, and any women who have been exposed to him should immediately call the number on the flyer.”

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