Page 31 of Joey

“Shelly, or whatever her name was?” I ask, vaguely recalling our last trip to Okinawa.

“Yeah.” Huck points to me. “We should get Shelly to do this for us. Make it all look legit.”

“Do you have her contact number?” Wald asks.

Huck holds up his phone, grinning. “She’s got a website!”

“What do you think?” Wald asks me.

I shrug. “Can’t hurt, right? Better to be over-prepared. Ask if she can get it done by this weekend.”

“Won’t they wonder why they just suddenly appeared?” Wald asks. “I mean, for sure they have already looked us up on socials and we don’t have any.”

“We’ll say they’re private. In fact,” Huck says, “we’ll leave them private until they bring it up. Then we’ll all be like, ‘Oh, let me change my privacy settings.’ And boom. We’ve got a history all set up.”

I nod my head. “Good idea. Both of those things. Wald, you take care of making memories while Huck takes care of backdating socials. Brooke and I have a house to see—”

Just as I say that my phone rings and when I glance at the screen, it comes up as unknown.

Normally I would not answer this because pretty much everyone I know and talk to is a contact in my phone.

But… it could be Maisy again.

So I tab accept and say, “This is Joey.”

“Mr. Boston. This is Don Parker, head of security for the Kane family.”

I almost can’t contain my eye-rolling groan. “What can I do for you, Parker?”

“We need a background check. I’m sending an email you need to sign so we can—”

My laugh cuts him off. “That’s not gonna happen.”

Silence from Mr. Parker.

“Do you hear me?”

“Mr. Boston, the family would like—”

“I’m sure the family would like a lot of things. Doesn’t mean they’re gonna get them.”

“It’s a very simple background check, Mr. Boston. The same one they give their employees.”

“I’m not their employee. So my answer is still no.”

“Your lawyers forwarded the name of your… girlfriend.”

I sent Brooke’s name over via text in the car ride back to the penthouse so the Kane family knew I was bringing a plus one. “What about her?”

“We don’t know who she is.”

“Well, I guess you’ll find out this weekend,” I say.

“I’m afraid that’s not acceptable. You see—

“Dude, you’re starting to piss me off. The answer is no. We don’t need to submit a background check to you. Now, if you want to get a court order, you can talk to my lawyers.”

“Everyone who comes to the estate has—”