Vonnie’s face crinkles into a look that says, What the fuck? without her having to say a word. Then she starts shaking her head and walking out the door mumbling about crazy friends and being owed an abundance of French martinis when this is over.
* * *
—
WHEN THEY SAID we were meeting at Poppy’s, I thought we were just meeting at Poppy’s. I didn’t realize they had an entire investigation headquarters set up—complete with a giant whiteboard and everything.
“Where did you even get that from?” As soon as I walk in, I point at the whiteboard that stretches across almost the entire wall.
“TK is very serious about coaching Ace’s soccer team. They watch film and then draw up plays at night.” Poppy says this like it’s a completely normal occurrence.
“Oookay.” I still think it’s weird, but hey, what do I know? “Why do we need it though?”
“There’s always a big board in situations like this,” Aviana says.
And if I thought the whiteboard was strange, seeing Aviana with her hair in a tight bun and wearing thick-rimmed glasses that she definitely does not need and a fucking turtleneck makes me wonder if I’m hallucinating this entire freaking thing.
I pinch myself . . . a little too hard. “Ouch.”
“Why did you do that?” Aviana frowns, looking at the red spot blooming on my arm where I pinched.
“I was making sure I wasn’t dreaming this situation up,” I say. “So . . . does anyone want to fill me in on what you guys have been up to?”
“Oooh! Me!” Poppy jumps up and down, holding one hand under her cute little—but not that little—belly. “My whiteboard, my presentation!”
“That’s not a real rule.” Jacqueline pouts.
“Is so.” Poppy sticks her tongue out at Jac before turning to the rest of the group. “Now, everyone have a seat so we can fill Brynn in.”
Poppy has a ruler in her hand for some reason, and all I can picture are the stories my grandma used to tell me about the nuns slapping her with rulers. So even though I want to run back to my office and hide under my desk, I sit down.
“Brynn”—she looks as me, and I have a sinking feeling that she has practiced this—“while you’ve been moping and eating ice cream and still not gaining a pound, which we all find to be insanely unfair, we’ve been busy proving that Maxwell is innocent in this.” She yanks the lid off of her marker with impressive theatrics and then points it at the whiteboard because it’s not a marker . . . it’s a laser.
Then I almost slide all the way off the couch because I’m officially dead.
I cannot with Poppy.
“A laser, seriously?”
“Yes, a laser.” She points it in my eyes. “And you’d do well to remember that I know how to use it.”
“Geez, sorry!” I rub my eyes, hoping my vision hasn’t been permanently damaged.
“As I was saying, we don’t believe Maxwell is guilty of what he was accused of. In fact, after a little investigative work of our own, we think he’s the victim of a much more sinister plot.”
“Girl,” Vonnie says from a chair across the room. “This is not a Netflix original. Get to the point.”
There are a lot of silent nods of agreement around the room, but everyone is equally afraid of Poppy’s pregnancy hormones, so no words are said.
“Fine.” She scrunches her nose. “We think Theo is blackmailing Maxwell.”
All the air leaves me in one whoosh as memories I’ve been working hard to suppress come rushing to the forefront of my mind. Warnings he gave me about Theo. The look of concern he wore when I told him Eloise was seeing him. His insistence that I not ever be alone with Theo.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, my sinuses on fire as guilt threatens to consume me.
“We were already talking about how something wasn’t right when Eloise came into HERS looking for you. It only took a little bit.” Poppy’s eyes widen and she lifts her hands in front of her chest. “Okay, we basically kidnapped her and demanded that she tell us what she knew. But—wait, Eloise, you tell this part, you’re way better at it.”
Poppy doesn’t wait for Eloise to answer before she plops down onto the couch next to me and sips her sparkling water out of a wineglass.
“Well.” Eloise stands slowly and makes her way to a table that I’m only now noticing is covered in papers and manila folders. “Theo had come to me about a month ago and asked if it was possible for me to look into a case. He said he was worried that Maxwell was in trouble and he wanted to make sure his name couldn’t be found. I didn’t see the big deal, so I said yeah. I like doing that stuff anyways, I’m a little nosy, so this is a perk to my job,” she says, and I’m reminded how much we are alike. “But once I looked into the case, a few things stuck out to me. The names were all blacked out. Theo told me that he was the one who took the fall for Maxwell, but in the papers, it mentions the defendant’s brother was willing to testify against him. Why would Maxwell do that if Theo was helping him? It didn’t make any sense. So I made a few calls.”
I’m pretty sure my heart is about to beat out of my chest. The cuts on my legs, even though they are healed now, start to ache behind my jeans.
“By telling me and you about the attack and settlement, Theo broke the NDA, and I was able to get in touch with the lawyer from the case. And while she did confirm that Max paid her client, she insisted that it wasn’t to keep the woman quiet and that Max paid her attorney’s fees. She said that her client hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it at all, but once Max got drafted and received his first paycheck, he sought out her client and told her she deserved justice and he’d pay for all of her legal fees if she chose to do so. Then, when she realized what a trial would entail and decided to settle out of court, Max paid the settlement because he knew Theo never would.”
“Wait . . .” I put my head in between my knees. This sick sensation of overwhelming relief and gut-wrenching regret makes me feel like I’m suffocating. She’s telling me too much, and while everything she’s telling me should make me feel better, it does the opposite. I knew I should’ve trusted Maxwell. But even though I thought I was ready for a relationship, I used the very first excuse I could find to run away. And by doing that, I believed the worst about him. I fucking hurt him.
Our first hurdle and I ran in the other direction.
Forty-two
I don’t know what happened for the rest of the meeting.
And not because I couldn’t focus.