Page 3 of The Best Shot

“Hale.”

I sighed. “What can I do for you this early, Ava?”

“Mm. Many things. But right now this is a heads-up. We’re staging an intervention.”

“Oh yeah?” My brow lifted. “For who?”

“Guess.”

A small smile pulled at my mouth. “Annie catch another charge?”

“Nope. Guess again.”

It took me all of two seconds to understand.

Well.

Fuck.

“And what exactly am I being intervened for?” I asked.

“Your whole… situation. Whatever this is you’re doing. We had a meeting.”

“A meeting,” I repeated. “About me.”

“Yup.”

I got up, moved to the window. The street outside had that early hush, like the world was still deciding whether to start. “I don’t need help meeting women, Ava. We’ve been over this.”

“Not the right ones.” Her voice softened. “You’re lonely, Hale.”

That voice in the dark came back to me. Nah, I’m good.

“I’m not lonely.”

“Nico says you are.”

“Nico needs to stay in his lane.”

“Nico’s your best friend. He’s doing his job.”

I watched Whitlock Hills start to wake. Outside, a man and his dog moved slowly down the sidewalk, stopping whenever the dog found something worth investigating.

“We want to set you up,” Ava said.

“No.” The word came out automatic and too defensive, even to my own ears.

“You need somebody, Hale. Someone real. Somebody who knows your middle name and how you take your coffee. Someone without flames coming out of their ass crack.”

“It was Tinkerbell,” I lied.

“That’s worse.”

Yeah. It was.

I looked back at the empty bed. Room service would erase every trace of last night like it never happened.

I rubbed a hand over my face. Part of me wanted to tell her to fuck off. The bigger part, the one that had been staring at the ceiling fan wondering why the hell I kept doing the same shit, knew she wasn’t entirely wrong.