Page 155 of While You Were Trending

“Olivia and Samantha found more money and they think Declan left it, Pip,” I say as Mabel whips out her phone and taps the screen like she’s sending a text.

Pip squints at me. “None of that sounded like a dead clam screwing a fish in a gory show.”

“Just roll with it. Want some coffee?”

“Ooh, I’d love some toffee.”

“Declan’s not in the barn,” Mabel says, confirming what I already know. He said he had to run an errand this morning.

Pip snorts. “What’s with you and the dead clam? Now it’s on a farm?”

“I really don’t think he’d leave around piles of cash,” I say.

“I finally finished using the last envelope two days ago, and suddenly there’s another envelope? It’s him.” Mabel’s been using the cash for groceries and necessities, along with making deposits small enough to not get flagged but large enough to get the cash off the property over the past two weeks.

“It’s not Declan,” I say.

“Who else could it be, hon?” Samantha says softly to me.

They all know what I’ve been up to this past weekend with Declan.

They also know my feelings are complicated but my vagina is simple and that I’m lying to myself about my vagina being simple and that the sex is actually complicated too, but that I’mhappy.

I like him.

I do.

And it’ll hurt when he leaves, but—but I’ve needed this.

I’ve needed to work through a real problem with a real person from my past, come out on the other side, and see that I can make a relationship work.

“Shade,” I say, realizing we haven’t suspected Declan’s director-slash-camera guy before. “It could be Shade.”

“What’s a banana blade?” Pip asks as everyone else studies me.

“What do we know about him?” I ask.

Mabel, unsurprisingly, has a ready answer. “Grew up in a religious Midwestern family, parents both worked for the local church, dropped out of art school after his freshman year, spent a little time drifting before he hooked up professionally with a rugby player who wanted a social media manager, used that as a stepping stone to get a job in LA through a friend, had an affair with someone whose name I’m not supposed to know, blackmailed him into a job, proved he had an eye behind the camera, and now here he is.”

“Does anyone in his family have money? Grandparents who left him something?” I ask.

“Not with that background,” Samantha murmurs.

Olivia rubs her back.

Understandable.

Samantha grew up in a similar environment, and to this day, her relatives won’t talk to her because she married a woman.

Mabel takes the envelope and thumbs through it. “Did you count it?”

“No, but it looks similar to last time,” Olivia says.

“Feels similar too,” Mabel murmurs.

“Can I see the note?” I ask.

Mabel hands it over.