Page 183 of The Exit Strategy

I have no right to ask anything of her. But I do it anyway. “But you will come back?”

“I…will.” The fingers of her right hand tug on the engagement ring.

“Don’t.” The word cracks and shifts in the air like it can’t find the right tone. “Don’t do that. Not yet.”

She clasps her hands together tightly, then turns on her heel, climbs into her car, and drives away with every piece of my soul that matters.

My drafting tablehas my forehead imprint on it, and the lamp next to it has been on for so many hours it’s probably becoming a fire hazard.

Nolan clears his throat in my doorway, and I lift my head. He’s wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt that looks like mine. I forgot what it was like living with all these guys. Nothing is off-limits.

He enters my domain looking like he isn’t sleeping much better than I am.

We’re both feeling the effects of Junie’s departure.

“Mae wants us all downstairs in fifteen minutes. She’s on her way over,” he says. “The article drops at eight, and Fen’s been up all night editing Junie’s video. He scheduled it to go live at 8:15. We’re going to watch it together.”

My erratic heartbeat causes another fissure between my ribs.

“Okay,” I say.

“She made it to Boston.”

I nod because I’ve been attached to the Juniper & Her Berries group chat since she left.

“I’ll put some coffee on. It’ll help.” He looks me over again. “And I’ll add some protein powder to it.”

I barely contain my cringe. Juniper would never desecrate coffee that way.

He pauses at the door. “Cole?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t agree with how you went about things, but…thank you. For always looking out for Junie…and for the rest of us.”

“You’re my family.”

“And you’re ours. But…”

I tense, waiting for the hit.

“What comes next will be hard. For all of us. And you need to prepare yourself. The article isn’t the hard part.”

“What is?”

He shakes his head. “You’ll see.”

I hear his feet on every step, and I follow his path to my family room with dread weighing me down.

Nana Mae is fluttering around the space, placing scones, cinnamon rolls, and breakfast sandwiches anywhere she can find room. It’s what she does when she’s nervous—she stress-bakes and flutters when something’s bothering her.

Hudson sits in the center of the couch with his laptop open in front of him and a yellow legal pad beside it. Fen sits next to him, close enough to annoy him but not close enough to touch. He’s holding an iPad in one hand, watching three things at once like a child who just discovered cartoons. Nolan stands against the back wall with his arms folded across his chest, not making eye contact with anyone.

Nana Mae spots me first. “Sit,” she says, then points at the open space next to Hudson.

It’s as if we’re fifteen again and she’s scolding us forsneaking out on Papa’s boat in the middle of the night when we visited him during spring break. That was a mistake we only made once. I’d never seen her so mad.

Without a word, I take my seat next to Hud.