Page 20 of Faking Cinderella
I was halfway to town before I realized why the cabin felt weird.
It was because the entryway barely had any evidence left of the way she ambushed me.
I’m fucking slipping.
A year off of daily private security, doing random-ass shit for friends here and there while trying to replan my life after it imploded, and I failed to notice that she’d mopped up all of the flour and removed the rug.
“He’s not my friend,” Decker says to the redhead. “I don’t know him. There’s nothing interesting about him and no reason for you to know him.”
I reach across the bar, holding out a hand despite Decker’s nowhere-near-subtle warning. “Rhys O’Malley. And you’re Sabrina?”
Her green eyes sparkle with the kind of mischief you’d expect of someone who’s cousins with the Sullivan triplets, even if biologically, they don’t share any genes.
“You’ve been here before,” she says to me while she shakes my hand.
“Time or two.” Decker used me as inspiration for a popular main character in one of his early novels, and insisted I come visit not long after he got out of the Marines. Saidthank youfor letting him use me by treating me to a mountain getaway.
Most guys leave the Marines with a bestie who saved their life.
I left the Marines with a friend who’d immortalized me in a litRPG novel and who still sends me a case of my favorite beer every year on the anniversary of its publication.
“Kombucha’s new, isn’t it?” I say to Sabrina.
“We’ve had it a few years now. My husband and his best friend make it. What happened to your face?”
“It learned the hard way not to piss off a hairdresser.”
“My mom’s a hairdresser, and she takes her dye responsibility very seriously. She wouldnever.”
“If only they all did.”
“Coffee?”
“And a lemon scone, please.”
“Fresh batch is in the oven. I’ll get you one as soon as they’re done.”
“Why are you working on a Saturday?” Decker asks her.
She grins. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were disappointed to see me.”
“Always happy to see you,” he grits out.
“You’re a worse liar than Lucky. So, Rhys, what brings you back to the Tooth?”
“Work,” I tell her, my brain catching up and remembering that the locals call Snaggletooth Creek, the town,the Toothfor short.
“That’s so specific.”
“Leave him alone, Sabrina,” Decker says. “He’s doing security for Spruce Creek.”
“Permanently or just for the big event?”
I don’t call her out on the lack of specificity onthe big eventbecause I’m glad she’s not specific.
The fewer people who know the purpose and guest list for the upcoming private conference at the new center, the better.
“To be determined,” is the only answer I’m willing to give her.
