I need to stop smiling.
I do.
She should be mad at me. I didn’t call her.
I didn’t have her number, but I didn’t ask Zen for it either until they sent it to me, and I think I got so tied up in what I was looking for that I might have forgotten to check if she texted me back.
“I’m sorry,” I say while Jitter pushes against me, tail wagging so hard he nearly knocks over a chair at the closest table.
He’s such a good boy. My favorite good boy.
“You don’t look sorry,” Sabrina says.
Yep. I’m still smiling. “You’re here.”
“What are you doing here?”
I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “Destroying their lives.”
“Oh my god, Grey.” She sucks in a deep breath.
I know that breath.
It’s the breath of java give me patience.
“That’s Vince,” I tell her. “My former friend and partner. And the fucklebuckets he sold my research to.”
She leans around me and peers at them. “Oh, sweetheart, do not test me,” she says. “Give. Me. The. Phone.”
Swear I hear Vince gulp.
She twitches her fingers.
He tries to put the phone away.
“Jitter, fetch the phone,” she says.
“Very funny, Ms. Nobody,” Vince says.
“Give her the phone before he rescinds the offer, you idiot,” one of his companions in dastardly deeds says.
“He can’t—”
“Jitter, fetch,” Sabrina repeats, pointing at Vince.
Jitter woofs.
The ma?tre d’ gives me the glare of all glares.
I grin at him too.
“Definitely feel that offer dropping,” I muse with a pointed look at Vince. “Give her the phone. Unlocked. So she can delete the video.”
“Grey—” he starts.
“I know about your child support issue,” Sabrina says to him.
Fuck, I love her.
My heart swells and my eyes prickle with the sudden realization, but it’s true.
I do.
I don’t need to go back to Snaggletooth Creek and see if this goes anywhere.
It’s already gone somewhere for me.
I love this woman.
I love her confidence.
I love her heart.
I love the code that she lives and gossips by.
I love that Vince is visibly trembling as he hands his phone to her so she can delete the video he was taking of us.
She makes quick work of what she needs to do while Jitter pushes against me, panting happily and wagging his tail with enough force to classify it as a weapon of restaurant destruction while I happily rub his thick fur all over his wiggly overgrown puppy body.
“If I were the type of person to throw electronics in the ocean, this would be gone right now. You’re lucky I’m not stabbing it with a steak knife. Respect people’s privacy, asshole.” Sabrina points to the table and circles her finger around it. “I don’t know what else was going on here, but whatever he apparently just offered you, take it. Trust me on this.”
“Sir,” the ma?tre d’ says to me, “I need the dog to leave.”
“Duchess?” I murmur.
Like hell they’re getting her real name.
“Don’t even try to get on my good side with that smile right now,” she replies pertly. She nods to the ma?tre d’。 “Thank you for your understanding. Jitter, come. Grey, you too. Now.”
I’m smiling again while I follow her out of the restaurant and onto the street. “You’re here.”
“You left me.”
“I was coming back.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I got tied up in research and straightening my cape.”
Am I stepping as close to her as Jitter will let me, settling my hands on her hips and still smiling like I’ve forgotten how to frown?
Yes. Yes, I am.
But then she blinks and her eyes take on a sheen that suggests tears, and I can’t smile anymore. “Sabrina, I’m not laughing at you. I’m so damn glad to see you, and I can’t—”
She clutches my arms. “I kept telling myself you didn’t ghost me to get back at me for Hawaii, that I knew better, but I just didn’t know. And I miss you and I’m not supposed to miss you. I have a heart of iron when it comes to men but you gave Mimi the café. That’s what my grandpa did for my grandma when they got married. He built the café for my grandma because she was so sad that the man she loved had knocked her up and dumped her and she knew Grandpa didn’t love her. She kept telling him she knew she was a burden. But even with his own heart breaking, he didn’t want her to think she was a burden, ever. So he did the only thing he could to make her happy. Do you have any idea how impossible it is to not think you’re every bit the man that my grandpa was when you do the same things he did? When you build something to make someone else happy no matter the cost to you?”