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“Know? I know a lot of things.” Daisy looked a littleflustered.
Kala held that curling iron like it was a weapon. “What doyou know about Tristan?”
Brianna frowned her friend’s way. “You’re supposed to bebetter at this. You are the queen of looking innocent.”
Daisy shrugged. “Well, they throw me off when they go allpredatory. Especially Lou. And honestly, I wouldn’t hate them looking into itbecause I don’t know what’s going on. Aidan and Carys are acting like they’reso mad at Tris and they’re going through with the wedding without him, but Iswear I’ve heard them talking. I was out at my brother’s place last week and itwas super late. I got up to grab some water and he was out on the porch, pacingand talking, and I swear it had to be Tristan. He was asking him when it wouldbe over. I don’t know what it is. Then he saw me and hung up. He saidhe was talking to someone at the hospital, but I know what I heard.”
Brianna seemed to come to some kind of decision. “I think mybrother might be in over his head. I know my dad is worried about him. I can’t tellif he knows what’s going on, but he knows something, and he’s not even tellingmy mom.”
Lou looked up at Kala, who nodded.
They were thinking the same thing. Tristan was working ajob. A dangerous one, and they needed to figure out how deep he’d gone.
“We’ll take care of it,” Lou promised.
Still, both women looked to Kala.
“We will,” Kala confirmed.
She was going to have to work on her street cred.
“See, I told you we should put it all in the hands of our spygirls,” Brianna said.
“She did,” Daisy agreed. “But I was worried. I don’t want tobetray my brother, but I think he’s getting in over his head. And I should knowbecause I’m always in over my head. So now that’s out of the way, is it trueyou’re finally doing TJ?”
Lou felt a flush go through her system, and she turned backto the mirror. “It’s part of the op. You know how the Brits are here? Well,they know about our team, but Ben Parker doesn’t. I can’t talk about it, but itwas necessary for the op that he believes we’re dating.”
“Ooo, you’re fake dating,” Briannasaid with a whistle. “It’s my mom’s third favorite trope, only defeated byenemies to lovers and friends to lovers. I think she mostly wants thecharacters to be lovers.”
Brianna’s mom was a legend in the romance publishingindustry. Serena Dean-Miles had been writing happily ever aftersfor more than twenty years, and she’d built an empire around it.
“How does your mom feel about the dumbasses who can’t gettheir timing right trope?” Kala snarked.
She turned on her best friend, narrowing her eyes. “Seriously?Mirroring much?”
Kala shrugged. “Not mirroring at all. Cooper and I willnever have a right time, but you and TJ obviously do.”
“I thought Lou was dating around,” Daisy said, obviouslyconfused. “I talked to Aunt Charlotte about some of the guys I know. They’reall awful players, and I wouldn’t let them anywhere near Lou. Ooo, I heard a rumor that Nate Carter is coming to Dallas.He used to be kind of cute.”
The big Aussie they’d worked with in Sydney was more on thegorgeous side, but she didn’t see that happening. “I think he’s coming for ajob. Not to date.”
“You know she’s only dating because TJ’s being an ass,”Brianna replied.
She had to stop that. “He’s not. He wasn’t interested in methat way. It’s okay. He’s always been a good friend.”
“Well, I suppose that fits,” Daisy said with a sigh. “I’mgoing back to studying. Real estate. I’m going to be good at selling realestate.”
Daisy flounced off. Brianna shook her head as she stood.“Last week she was going to be good at party planning. At least there wasn’t atest for that one. Let me know if you find anything out. I’m worried about mybrother. I’m worried about all of them.”
When they were safely away, Kala looked at Lou in themirror. “Fake dating? Oh, bestie, do you want to go there? Because we’ve beenquiet about this up until now, but I have to worry that you are moving intoself-delusion. Are you really going to sit here and tell our friends you’regetting ready to play because of an op?”
It was good that Kala understood what she was doing. “Yes.”
Kala sighed, her eyes rolling. “I don’t like this. You’resupposed to be the reasonable one. If you insist on being this stubborn, we’regoing to end up living together at eighty with a bunch of cats. I kind of…”
Now Lou was worried because Kala sounded almost…wistful.Kala didn’t do wistful. “What?”
“I don’t know. I kind of thought if you and TJ could workthings out…”
