Page 23 of Bombshell (Whiskey Dolls 1)

She was so damn easy to talk to, which was just one of the many reasons why I knew my brother was full of shit in what he’d said about her. “I was wondering if your offer the watch Eli still stands. I could really use your help.”

“Of course,” she answered brightly. “I told you before, I’m happy to help.”

“Great. I don’t know if you’re working tonight—”

“I’m off,” she replied, sounding almost eager.

“Oh. All right. Great. Um, if it’s not too last minute, how about you come over to my place? That way you and Eli can hang with each other for a bit. I can take care of dinner and we can work out some sort of schedule.”

“Sounds good. But when you say you’ll handle dinner...”

She trailed off, and I knew instantly what she was getting at, which was why I burst into laughter. “I mean I’ll order pizza or something.”

“Good,” she giggled. “How’s seven sound?”

“Perfect. I’ll text you my address.”

“Great,” she chirped. “I guess I’ll see you then.”

That voice in the back of my head started shouting again, but I slapped a piece of duct tape over its mouth to silence it. This was just one person doing another a favor. That was it. “Yeah. We’ll see you then.”

We ended the call, and I set my phone back down on my desk and threw myself back into my work, all the while telling myself that I was smiling because this was going to lift a serious weight off my shoulders, not because I’d be seeing Marin tonight.

10

Marin

Dropping my cell back into my gym bag, I dabbed at my sweat-slick chest with a towel, noticing the rehearsal studio in the very back of Whiskey Dolls had grown eerily quiet. When I slowly turned to face the wall of mirrors at the front of the room, I discovered that it was because every single one of the girls was staring at me, each one wearing a version of a shit-eating grin.

“Who was that?” McKenna, known to all us girls as Mac, asked in a sing-song voice. She and her husband, Bruce, had opened Whiskey Dolls a few years back. Theirs was a true fairytale story that we all swooned at hearing. While she didn’t perform all that often—too busy trying to run a successful, thriving business—she still attended every rehearsal and choreographed at least half of our numbers.

“Yeah, Mar,” Alma jumped in, her tone full-on teasing. “Was that amanwho put that smile on your face?”

I rolled my eyes as the girls let outoohs and catcalls. “That was absolutely nothing, you freaks. And since when do you eavesdrop on my conversations?”

Sloane sat on the floor, stretching out her limbs after our rigorous rehearsal. “Since your voice got all seductive and breathy while you talked to him.”

“My voice wasn’t seductive and breathy!” I insisted. “I’m justout of breath. That was a hard rehearsal.”

Mac rolled her eyes and sucked back the rest of the water in her bottle. “Oh, please. Everyone here knows your stamina is better than that. You could leave practice and go on a three-mile run without getting winded.”

A telling heat burned at my cheeks, flooding them with color that my friends didn’t hesitate to call me out on.

“Oooooh, Layla ribbed. “Someone’s blushing.”

“I hate you,” I grunted, snatching up my own water bottle and sucking back a few healthy gulps.

“But seriously,” Charlotte asked with a wicked, sly grin, “we all know what a disaster Layla’s set-up was, so who was on the phone?”

“It was no one,” I insisted. “It was just Pierce.”

“Who’s—” Mac’s words died off as her forehead pinched in confusing. “Pierce, like your ex’s brother, Pierce?”

“Wait.” Sloane’s head shot up, the curtain of her long, glossy hair swinging around her face. “Didn’t you say he’s like, a raging asshole or something?”

“Obviously not as big an asshole as his piece-of-shit brother,” Alma muttered unhappily. “But you have told us he’s a dick.”

Layla lifted her hand in the air to draw everyone’s attention. “I believe her exact words were ‘Satan in a bespoke suit with a square jaw and sex hair.’”

---