“I don’t know, maybe talk to him. Hear what he has to say,” Rance snapped.
Maeve looked at the sliding glass door Niko had disappeared through. “I’m afraid to be hurt,” she admitted.
“So is he. Probably more than you are.”
Maeve stood up, took a few steps toward the door, then looked back at Griffin and took a few back toward Griffin, before looking at the door again.
“We’ve got him. Go,” Bonnie said. “There’s a lot you don’t know. He’s got his reasons.”
“That’s what Alison said,” Maeve said.
“Then why are you standing here? We’ve got Griffin.”
“Griffin, be good for Reigna Bonnie.”
“Go catch Niko, Mom!” he yelled. “Hurry!”
Maeve grabbed her towel and ran through the door and into the living room. “Niko?!” she called out. “Niko?!”
Jack walked out of his and Bonnie’s bedroom with a towel in his hand. “He just left. Said he was going to work.”
“Thank you,” Maeve said.
Jack nodded, then walked out of the house to join Bonnie and their family and friends by the pool.
Maeve stood in the living room for only a few seconds before she rushed out of the house, closing the front door behind her as she hurried to Alison’s house. She didn’t stop until she reached Alison’s front door, stopping only then to knock on the door.
“Why are you knocking?” Alison asked as she opened the door. “You live here.”
“Because I didn’t want to interrupt if you were in a private moment.”
“Even if we were, which we weren’t, it wouldn’t be in the living room,” Alison said, laughing.
“I have a problem.”
“What’s wrong?” Alison asked, immediately concerned.
“Niko asked me to go to dinner with him so we could talk. I thought he was just being his usual flirt self and turned him down. He wasn’t flirting. Rance said I screwed up.”
“He said that?” Alison asked.
“Not in so many words, but more or less. I tried to catch Niko, but he’d already gone. Jack said he said he was going to work.”
“Okay.”
“I need to get changed and get to the bar. That’s his only work, right?”
“It is.”
“I’ll drive you down,” Feral said from the living room.
“Really?” Maeve asked.
“Sure. I don’t mind.”
“Do you?” she asked Alison.
“Why would I mind? I’ve been secretly hoping you and Niko would work this out,” Alison said.
