Page 94 of Go Back to December

“Can’t fucking stand it!” Sybil rolls her neck and glares at Lacy. “You gotta tell her.”

“No,” Lacy says primly.

“Lacy!” Sybil slaps her hand on the table. “Tell. Her.”

“He’ll kill me.”

“Oh, I have a feeling he’ll thank you.”

“I can’t!” Lacy insists.

“Fine.” Sybil rises and saunters over to my chair so she can look me straight in the eye. “Melody, baby, there wouldn’t be a café at all without Baz.”

“No,” I argue. “There wouldn’t be a café without Lacy.”

“The café was Baz’s idea. He put the proposal together. He asked Lacy to contact you.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, no, no—”

“Yes!” Lacy screams, like we’re removing her molars with a fork. “It was Baz’s idea. He saw the alumni post and asked me if I knew you. He didn’t want to approach you himself. It would have been creepy for a strange guy from the internet to suddenly message you about a job.”

But he wasn’t a stranger. I knew him.

And he knew me.

I meet Lacy’s wide gaze. If I’d trust her to dispose of a corpse, so would Baz.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper.

Why didn’t he?

“Baz made me promise. We were already dealing with Men Behaving Abominably. He didn’t want you to think—”

I don’t go to the café for breakfast. I go to see you.

And it makes sudden, perfect sense.

Baz does breakfast.

Baz advocates for people who need representation.

Baz remembered me.

I can’t breathe. I fly off the chair, shaking, sweating. Sobbing.

“Shit,” Sybil murmurs as she scrambles for paper napkins. “She cannot get these documents wet.”

Lacy pats my back. “You really didn’t know?”

I really didn’t. But now I do.

Baz does nothing unintentionally. The post on Luiza’s feed is an SOS, and I’ve got to rescue him.

My blurry eyes land on Lacy’s camera bag.

I grab her shoulders. “Justin also shot that boys’ choir as part of the series, right?”

Lacy nods.