Page 98 of Desert Rain
“I don’t have plans.”
“Lena.”
“And I do have points.” She looked back at the screen, already calculating. “My parents transferred some airline miles because they’re trying to bribe me into visiting them in Phoenix next month, but honestly, Santa Fe is more interesting.”
“Lena.”
“What?”
“So I’m supposed to crash an MC wedding and bring a date?”
“Do you want to go alone?”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
That was rude, because it was a very good question.
Going alone meant walking into a room full of Royal Bastards and their women by myself, pretending I didn’t know what Mason felt like under my hands on a motorcycle. Going with Lena meant backup, distraction, and someone to physically remove me if I started making choices with my nervous system instead of my brain.
“I don’t even have a dress,” I said, which was not an answer and we both knew it.
Lena’s face changed. That bright, dangerous look she got when a plan formed fully armed in her head. “I have a hookup out here.”
“That sentence has never led anywhere legal.”
“You’re still a size six, right?”
“Six up top, eight on the bottom.”
“Gotcha.”
“Why did you ask that so fast?”
She was already moving, phone bouncing as she got up from the bed. “My friend works at this insane secondhand place in Silver Lake. Designer stuff. Rich women buy gowns, wear them once, donate them for tax reasons, then move on with their empty little lives.”
“I cannot afford designer.”
“You’re not buying designer. We’re borrowing optimism.”
“That sounds like theft wearing perfume.”
“She’ll look the other way. I’ll grab a few options, take the tags off carefully, slip them back on if something doesn’t work.Worst case, we find you something cute and cheap. Best case, you walk into that wedding looking like the woman Mason is definitely pretending not to think about.”
“I hate that sentence.”
“You hate that it has structure.”
“I hate that it has Mason in it.”
“Liar.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “I don’t even know if I want to go.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
