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Margot only grunted as she began braiding Phoebe’s hair. They’d had this disagreement the first time they’d watched the show as well, so Phoebe could interpret the grunt. Margot thought Aunt Polly was just as ambitious as Tommy.
“You just think Cillian Murphy is hot.”
“No, I think Tommy Shelby is hot. Cillian Murphy is cute. It’s all in the attitude. Since you’re into hot outlaws now, I’d think you’d come around to Team Tommy.”
Phoebe pulled away and turned to look behind her. “That was bitchy.”
Margot’s forehead bunched up. “Why? Are you not into a hot outlaw? Pretty sure a Brazen Bull counts.”
“I’m not into a Brazen Bull.”
“Pfft. He slept over! Twice! How long have we lived together? That’s the first time since we have that you’ve had a boy over long enough for breakfast, honey. You like him. A lot. I know I played bad cop when he had dinner with us, but I think I actually like him, too. Preliminarily speaking. He really leaned in helping you out. And Snorey McSnoreson over there says he made a good impression. Also, he’s definitely hot. So he plays in the deep end. Maybe that’s only a problem if he drags you in with him.”
Now Phoebe drew her brow in. “You’d be okay if I brought an outlaw into our lives? You?”
Her best friend shrugged. “Look. All the time at work, I see banks and big companies fucking over little farmers, old ladies, and young people just trying to get by, and I see all that fucking-over is totally legal. If some regular folks band together to get some back, maybe that’s not a bad thing, no matter how illegal it is. My granny used to say all the time she’d shoot a Fed on sight if one tried to get onto her property. She’d trust a Brazen Bull over a government agent a million times out of a million.”
Margot’s great-grandmother, the one person in her family she’d been truly close to, had been a citizen of Choctaw Nation. She’d come by her suspicion of the government honestly. Practically genetically.
Phoebe sighed and settled back against the base of the sofa. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to see Duncan again.”
Starting the braid over, Margot asked, “Why not?”
“He doesn’t want to start something, and I don’t want to be a booty call.” That was the truest explanation, and she needed to take it onboard herself: he wasn’t an asshole, and she wasn’t an idiot. They were merely in different places.
“All you’ve wanted since you got back from ...” Margot let the sentence fade out; she had a hard time saying any of the words that would finish it: got back from Afghanistan, from the Army, from war, from a coma, from re-learning how to be a human. “All you’ve wanted is easy hookups. If you don’t want that now, is this guy that special?”
“I think it doesn’t matter what I think. He’s not interested.”
“Are you sure about that? Did he say those words specifically?”
“What is your deal?” Again, Phoebe turned to glare at her friend. Margot was holding Phoebe’s new phone; she must have left it on the sofa cushion when she scooted down for a hair-brushing.
With a wry smirk, Margot handed her the phone. When the screen woke back up and the phone recognized her, she saw a preview of a text from the outlaw in question: Hey. I’m sorry about this morning.
“What did he do this morning?” Margot asked quietly.
Phoebe stared at her phone, wanting to see if there was more to the text but not wanting to put it on read. Not yet. She needed to think. “He didn’t do anything. He just didn’t answer when I asked if he’d be in touch again.”
“Well, I guess he’s answered now.”
