Page 29 of Here We Go Again

“Does this have anything to do with the fact that you don’t drink?” Logan asks.

Rosemary’s shoulders tighten. “How do you know I don’t drink?”

“Um, because at every staff party, you make a big deal ofordering only water, and you stand in the corner silently judging the rest of us.”

“I’m not judging.”

“I feel a bit judged at the moment,” Joe puffs.

“Why don’t you drink?” Logan presses, but there’s something surprising in her tone. Logan doesn’t sound mocking; she sounds genuinely curious. Her face has softened again, too. Rosemary finds it infuriating.

“I’m not sure what makes you think you’re entitled to details about my personal life. Does this usually work for you? You just waggle your attractive eyebrows and women do and say whatever you want?”

“Yes,” Logan answers simply. “You think my eyebrows are attractive?”

Heat crawls up the back of her neck. “Oh, don’t pretend to be modest. You know you have sexy eyebrows.”

“Sexy? Wow, that escalated quickly. I didn’t even know eyebrows could be attractive, and now mine have been upgraded to sexy?”

“See?” Rosemary strangles the steering wheel in her hands. “This is why I would never tell you anything real about myself. I’m just a punch line to you.”

“You’re not a punch line, Hale. You’re a puzzle.” She can feel Logan’s golden eyes burning into the side of her face. Rosemary glances at her sideways and finds that same soft, open expression. It reminds her of the Logan she used to know, and for a brief moment, it almost feels possible to get back to those girls they used to be. Maybe under the layers of sarcasm and feigned apathy, her Logan is still in there somewhere.

“You’re squabbling again, and I’m bored with it,” Joe blurts from the back. “Do you girls know what would make this traffic infinitely more tolerable? Van Morrison.”

Logan’s gaze finally shifts away from Rosemary. She clears her throat. “Some Van in the van,” she says blithely. “I’m on it.”

Within seconds, she’s cued up “Caravan” on her phone and plugged into some elaborate tape-deck aux hookup.

“Apt,” Joe says with an approving head nod.

“Very apt,” Logan agrees. She tilts her chair back, and Odysseus takes this as an invitation to climb into her lap. All ninety pounds of him.

“It’s actually not as ugly out here as I thought it would be,” Logan says, staring out at the rolling brown hills of Eastern Oregon over the dog’s head.

Rosemary forces herself to relax her shoulders again. “It reminds me of Steinbeck.”

“They remind me of butts,” Logan says. “Don’t the hills kind of look like butts?”

“Or ball sacks,” Joe chimes in as he exhales puffs of smoke.

“Or boobs. Look.” Logan points at one particularly boob-like hill. “That cluster of bushes is the areola, and that rock is the nipple.”

Rosemary takes four, four-count breaths and thanks the travel gods that traffic is starting to move again.

At least one fire has been contained.

Chapter Nine

LOGAN

“Well, this is definitely a murder hotel.”

Hale swallows and stares at the hotel through the windshield from the passenger seat. “This… this can’t be it.” She scrambles for her phone in the dark, and when it lights up, Logan can see her tense, puckered mouth. “This can’t be our hotel for the night.”

“I’m pretty sure this entire state is just Nazis and ski resorts, and this place sure as shit ain’t a ski resort.” Loganreallyshould’ve thought through the Queer Cuddler thing. Or considered Joe’s safety, like,at all. She’s truly such an asshole.

“?‘The Stag’s Head Inn,’?” Hale reads off the screen. She glances up at the neon sign in front of them, and although it’s missing several crucial letters, it’s clearly supposed to read “Stag’s Head Inn.”