Page 83 of How To Plot a Payback

Speaking of, where is he?

I reach for the script that Paula just flopped onto the table in front of me.

Sonya fidgets, clearly wanting to finish her story. “Go ahead,” I say with a sigh. “Tell me more of your heartlessness.”

“And then,” Sonya says rapidly, quieter, reaching for her script, “I said, ‘I just want to be honest with you so I don’t disappoint you. I’m sorry if this feels painful and confusing,’ and then she threw a lamp at me and that was that.”

I yawn and roll my eyes. “Sonya. It’s a miracle you have any friends at all.”

“I have seven friends, thank you very much. Pat—”

“Your cousin.”

“Montu—”

“Your other cousin.”

“Greg—”

“Your trainer.”

“Dave and Isabel—”

“Your neighbors. And you only like them because they called the police so much on your other neighbor he moved out.”

“And Kye. And you.”

I shake my head. “So essentially . . . family. If you tried saying that nonsense to Kye or me, we’d knock you over the head, then steal you for lunch.”

Sonya drops the stirrer onto the table. “Precisely. A true friend wouldn’t have let me break up with them to begin with. She had to go.”

“Well, I’m glad you are decided. By the way, your nonfriend Delilah is meeting us at noon.”

She picks up the script, and her eyes begin scanning down the page. She sniffs. “She’s not a nonfriend. She’s an adjacent friend. A friend of a friend whom I hate less than others. In her case, just a tiny bit less.”

“Touching. I hope that’s how you address her Christmas cards.”

“Please. Adjacents don’t get Christmas cards,” Sonya says, flipping the page. “Anyway, heads up, you need to lock in your six thirties for a while until I get a new running buddy.”

I slide my doughnut back and forth on the table between my hands. “I have an idea. Why don’t you take Bernie?” And fall in love with him. Your dog.

“He trips over his own feet walking,” she retorts. “Nice try.”

And then he comes in.

Our eyes lock.

A little chill runs over me, and I feel like I’ve swallowed an ice cream cone all at once.

Well. That’s new.

He stands next to Paula now, poring over something in the script.

I drop my eyes to my own script, then find my eyes drifting back up to him.

Finn Masters.

What is it about him exactly?