“Hate it.”
“Well, then…” she sends me another bright smile. “Dinner isgoing to be even more unpleasant than you’re anticipating.” Then she cranes her neck to look around me. “Is that your truck?”
I glance back and nod.
“You’re about to get a ticket.” She points her chin in the opposite direction I’m looking to an officer walking toward us tapping on her ticket dispenser.
I groan and dash to my truck. “I’m moving it right now.”
“You’re in a no parking zone, sir,” she says without looking up from her dispenser.
“Hi, Tiana,” Britta calls.
“Hey, girl! How you doing?” The officer calls back.
“Can I bribe you with a cup of coffee into letting this guy go?”
Tiana looks from Britta to me, then back again before tucking the ticket thing back into its holder on her hip.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t use the wordbribe.” Her mouth dips into a frown when she turns back to me. “You’ve got ten seconds to move that thing before I send this ticket in.”
“Park it around back. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes,” Britta says as she waves Tiana inside, not even offering me a cup of coffee, which, if Frankie is to be believed, is the best outside Australia.
After maneuvering my truck into a small parking spot behind Frothed, I roll down the windows and wait—impatiently—for Britta. Enough time passes that I start to think Britta’s taking her time on purpose, just to make me suffer. But right when I’m about to give up and go in after her, she appears and climbs into my truck.
“You mind if I ride with you so Dex can meet us there instead of swinging by to pick me up?” she asks after she’s already closed the door and reached for her seatbelt.
“Sure.” I restart the engine but leave the windows down to let the ocean breeze in.
“It’s been too long since I’ve been in a big truck,” Britta says as she smooths her hand along the dash, and I decide she’s an ally. I can tell the two of us, at least, are going to be friends.
The drive to the sushi place is short. Britta tells me a bit about herself—how she ended up moving to LA from Idaho and never expected to have a life that included a husband prepping for the Olympics and celebrities for friends.
Parking is easier to find in front of the restaurant than it was at Frothed, which I take as a good sign. Maybe the first one of the day.
I’m as twitchy as a bull in a chute when Britta and I walk into Kenzo’s. The lights are dim, and the host who lets us in shuts and locks the door behind us. I may not walk out of this restaurant alive. I have a little sister. I know what I’d want to do to a guy who hurt her the way I’ve hurt Frankie.
“They’re in the back,” the host says to Britta. “You want your usual drink?”
“No thanks, Kenzo. Just water tonight.” She pats her belly. Without her apron on, I notice it’s as round as a tiny beach ball.
“When are you due?” I'm aware you’re never supposed to ask a lady that, but she’s so clearly pregnant that I take a chance.
“December.” She rubs her hands lovingly over the bump as we walk to the back of the empty restaurant.
“Congrats. Boy or girl?” My voice hitches as I meet the glare of a man surrounded by three other people, sitting at a table only ten feet away.
She shakes her head. “We want a surprise.”
“I have a daughter,” I say, hoping if I’m being led to my death my fatherhood might save me. “She’s four.”
“I know,” Britta says. “Frankie’s told me all about Junie.”
That brings a smile to my face, even though—as Frankie would say,my stomach’s doing laps.I’m not surprised Frankie’s told her about Junie, but it’s nice to know for sure.
When we arrive at the table, and I have a better look at “everyone,” I clock who Archie is first because of his striking resemblance to Frankie. But also because he’s not Rhys James, who’s the other guy at the table. Cassidy is going to be so jealous when I tell her. Ben, too.
I offer my hand to Archie. “I’m Cal.”
