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“It’s not me. It’s Tyler,” she whispers. “He’ll stay up and rock the baby all night. Won’t complain once. Then he fell asleep on me last night.”
“On you.”
“On. Me,” she emphasizes.
“Huh.” I’m sure it’s temporary, because Tyler has seemed one heartbeat away from jumping his wife the entire time I’ve known them. I fill her in on Harrison’s arrival, giving more detail than I normally would.
“He hit him and then he kissed you?”
“Hit who and kissed who?” A familiar voice comes from out of speaker, and I sigh.
“Hey, Beck.”
The screen rotates, and a moment later, they’re both in frame.
Beck grins. “Hey, Little Queen.”
“Harrison hit his brother and kissed Rae,” Annie informs him.
“Damn. Serves that snotty prick right.”
“Who?” Annie asks.
“The brother. Pretty boy has no chill.” The derision in Beck’s voice is laced with something else, maybe from when Ash slammed Beck’s reality TV show the weekend we were all on the yacht last year for my birthday.
I think of Ash’s issues with drugs—if Beck only knew—but say nothing.
“He’s had a tough season. It’s a lot of pressure,” I hear myself say. “You’d like him if you gave him a chance.”
“Fortunately, I’ll never have to.”
Annie lifts a brow. “Anyway, Harrison’s back and you guys have made up.”
“Not quite.”
“I thought he kissed you,” Beck interjects. “Then things escalated from PG and you faded to black for our benefit.”
“Please don’t fade to black,” Annie begs.
I roll my eyes. “There might’ve been some mature situations. In the bathroom,” I go on when Annie makes a “give me more” motion with her hands. “Except things are complicated.”
Annie’s smile broadens. “Tyler and I did complicated. Your damage can’t be any worse.”
“He’s trying to bring down Mischa Ivanov, this business rival of his. The one who burned down his building. The problem is, I’m also trying to play Ivanov’s prize club.”
Beck whistles, and Annie’s jaw drops. “Rae, I agree with Harrison on this one.”
“But La Mer is everything I’ve dreamed of playing.”
“You could have fun playing other gigs, couldn’t you?” Annie asks.
“I don’t know. It hasn’t been fun lately,” I hear myself say without thinking. “The last six months, it’s felt more like phoning it in. Which is a fucking awful thing to say, but I wonder if I’ve done everything there is to do. Except La Mer.”
“So, once you play it, you can check it off your bucket list and take cover?”
Except when Annie says it, it doesn’t feel right.
I shake my head. “I don’t believe in revenge, but I agree this guy needs to be off the streets. Ibiza would be better off, his patrons would be better off, the music industry too. I’m playing other clubs. I get up in other peoples’ businesses in a way Harrison can’t.”
