Page 34 of The Exit Strategy

The coffee in my stomach threatens to make an appearance in my mouth.

Fen: She’s rebranding. She’s creating a full victim arc and said she’s writing a book about surviving friendship abuse. Her words, not mine.

Fen: Also—and I need you to stay calm here—she showed another video. Of you at the Red Sox game. Obviously edited. And she cried.

Of course it’s edited. I’m sure it doesn’t show the guy grabbing my ass, just my reaction to it. I’m not even surprised she cried—she’s been rehearsing for this moment her entire life.

Junie: How bad is it?

I have a feeling I already know. If you pit me against Grace, I’ll always get the shit end of the deal. Grace is lovable in a way I’ve never been able to manage.

Fen: Her I.Am.Sorry account gained 200K followers overnight. She’s at 750K now.

Fen: But, my little Spite-Berry, this is important here. She’s overplaying her hand. Her timeline doesn’t match up. I’ve got screenshots from three different interviews where her story contradicts itself.

Fen: When she falls, she’ll fall hard.

Fen: DO NOT ENGAGE. Don’t look. Let me handle it.

Fen: In fact, handing your phone over to Cole isn’t the worst idea either.

Junie: I’m not going to engage.

I sit back in my chair with a huff and open a new web browser. Does he truly think I have no self-control?

Fen: Spite-Berry, I love you, but I know you. You’re already googling the podcast, aren’t you?

I close the browser and set my phone face down.

Asshole.

Seven hundred and fifty thousand people. That’s how many humans have chosen Grace’s version of events. Seven hundred and fifty thousand strangers think I’m the villain in the friendship I gave my best to.

Meanwhile, I’m hiding out in a retirement community in South Carolina, untangling someone else’s financial wreckage, making coffee for a man who broke my heart, and slowly realizing that the mess in these spreadsheets goes deeper than anyone in this house wants to admit.

Friendship abuse. For real?

I close my eyes and count to ten. Then I reopen my spreadsheet because numbers don’t lie, and numbers don’t cry on podcasts, and numbers have never once made me feel utterly alone.

Cole appearsin the doorway of the conference room with a plate of food I didn’t ask for and sets it on the corner of the table without saying a word. A quick glance at the time tells me I’ve worked through lunch. Again.

The tightness in my throat grows thorns. He made grilled cheese and cut it diagonally, with a pickle on the side I know came from Dollie’s personal stash because that woman is obsessed with the healing properties of pickle juice and makes it herself.

I eye it while he watches me, but I don’t thank him, and he’s not expecting me to. That’s the weird arrangement we’ve silently fallen into. He feeds me, I pretend not to notice, and we both act as though this is normal boss-employee behavior.

We both know it’s not.

“I need to talk to you about the books,” I say, swiping a triangle of the grilled cheese my stomach refuses to let me ignore. I’m not a freaking martyr like him.

He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms. He’s wearing a baby blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up, showing off his forearms. He probably does that on purpose. Add in the glasses he’s pushed to the top of his head, the slight scowl tugging his lips down, and he looks like some irritably hot professor who punishes bad girls over the top of his desk.

Er—record scratch and salt in my eyeballs. What the fuck?

“What about them?”

Shit. Focus, Juniper!

“The damage isn’t random. Devin wasn’t incompetent—he was strategic. The money he’s been funneling from The Haven started at least twelve months ago, but I have a feeling that if I keep digging, it’ll go back even further.”