Page 51 of While You Were Trending

“We can open more or less immediately as an adult toy store, like Cricket suggested we do when we start selling wine, and?—”

“Not until the wall and door are built. It’s one thing to have a winery that sells adult products, and it’s something else to become known as an adult toy store that tries to sell wine later.”

“What if we license the right to sell other wines here while we wait for ours?”

“It takes time, Gin. We still need to get our licenses in order.”

She’s right.

Of course she’s right.

Desperation and fear are speaking for me, not logic and strategy.

I suck in a heavy breath that feels more like I’m inhaling all of the sand in the desert than it feels like real air. “And we have to let Declan and the crew record us having this discussion. It’ll be good for ratings for the world to see what we did when—when we got unwanted attention before we were ready.”

She doesn’t answer.

“You and Dori and Cricket and Declan. I’ll—I’ll get my head on right for—for a real meeting with all of us except Declan before you—before you let him in for the filmed meeting.”

If Mabel were a police detective, her suspects would crack every time. She has this way of looking at you like she’s a human lie detector. “You don’t want to kick him out?”

“Do you think he did it?” I reply.

She shakes her head without hesitation. “Do you?”

I wince. “Iwantto believe it was him, but I—I don’t.”

“I can look into the leak.”

“It wasn’t him.” Another shiver makes my entire body quake. “If he and Alex are still friends?—”

“They seem to be.”

“—then I doubt he’d do anything to remind Alex of what—what I did.”

For Alex’s sake.

Not for mine.

Mabel studies me. “If we’re going to pull the plug on this production, now’s the time to do it. Last chance.”

I want to pull the plug.

I want so badly to tell her to kick them all out.

But it’s for selfish reasons, and I’m done doing things for selfish reasons.

“I should be on camera,” I force out. “I should—I should take advantage of the attention and I should?—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No. That’s final.” She grabs the plate that’s balancing precariously on my pile of essentials on my nightstand. “And you need to eat.”

I eye the chicken salad, and I find a small smile. “Who let the chickens out?”

“Probably Lav or Pip. They’re both getting ice cream after dinner.”