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breakup.
Archie: Girls never tell you when it’s bad.
Jake: No. They don’t.
Archie: Sharon’s already out for her.
Jake: Maybe.
Bubba: It’s not that Thorns
person is it?
Coop: Because of the posts over the
weekend?
Jake: We need to catch them
Archie: We need to do something.
Staying at Mason’s.
Bubba: Be there after practice.
Jake: Ditto
Coop: Be there when car is clean.
Archie: Think of who else might target
her cause of us.
Jake: It is us, isn’t it?
Archie: Yeah. And they are going to regret it.
Chapter Sixteen
What are you willing to lose?
The fact I had to leave my car with Coop irked. Archie had been great on the drive to my place, he didn’t nag or try to pry things out of me. All he did was say, “What do you need?”
While he fed the cats, I got changed into my uniform and washed my face. The burning urge to cry was almost as humiliating as what they’d done to my car. The Instagram tags kept coming, so I went into the app long enough to shut off notifications.
When I came back out, Archie slipped his phone into his back pocket before he held out his arms. Call me weak, but I wanted that hug. I leaned on him and closed my eyes for about thirty seconds. Then we had to go, I was already late.
Marsha had been fantastic. Despite the fact I’d worked at Mason’s for two years and had my routines down to a fine art, I was so off-center for my shift. It took me twice as long to get shakes pulled, I had to double-check every order I took, and more than once, I caught myself examining every student I recognized and those that were in the right age range to be at our school.
Were they the ones who painted my car in condoms?
There were obvious picks—Sharon? Maria? Patty? But I didn’t want to accuse anyone. Sharon had posted the pictures. As bad as those were, I even understood why she did it. That did not paint her the villain of any story, much less my own.
Archie parked himself at a table in the corner of my station and had his homework out. But every time I glanced over at him, he was either watching me or studying the customers. Paranoia could be contagious. Though, whenever our gazes collided, he’d give me an encouraging smile and it helped.
It helped a lot.
Coop slid into the booth when I was in the back pulling fresh ice cream tubs. The grin he tossed me when I caught sight of him squeezed me like a warm hug. I glanced outside, and there was my baby, parked neatly next to Archie’s Ferrari, all cleaned up and sparkling.
