Page 24 of The Deals We Make

“Turns out her mom’s got some shit going on. But her house looks like one of those houses you see on TV, like a neglected health hazard. She needs to get it into shape fast to stay there with her tonight.”

Switch sighs and eyes me carefully. “Helping you out for a couple of hours is easy, but…”

“But what?”

“The girl fucked off and ghosted you fifteen years ago.”

“So?” I say the word even though I totally know what he’s getting at.

“So, why would you help her? You guys talk that shit through yet?”

I think about our conversation on the sidewalk outside the bank.

You’re a long way from California.

If there were a state farther away from you that wasn’t north of the forty-second parallel, I would have moved there.

We aren’t friends. I have nothing to say to you.

We’re old history. Nothing more.

Let’s just…pretend we don’t know each other.

But we do know each other, Cal. Isn’t it time we stopped pretending that we don’t?

“We’re cool.”

Switch huffs and shakes his head. “Which means you’re probably just doing something good for her mom and she’s still an ass. Right?”

He always could see straight through me.

“Pretty much. Doesn’t change the fact Mrs. Moray is in some kind of crisis and I can help. Only question I’m up for discussing right now is if you’re gonna help her too.”

Switch squeezes my shoulder. “Of course, I am. Because I need to see the woman who bailed on you. My gain, I guess. Let me go tell Sophia I’m leaving.”

Just as he disappears, there’s a knock at the door, so I open it. Niro stands there with a cardboard box in his hand filled with random shit like spatulas and baking sheets.

“Heard there’s a determined and highly unskilled baker in Switch’s kitchen,” he says as he steps inside. Then his nose wrinkles at the smell. “Shit, she really is bad.”

“I heard that,” Sophia says as she walks to the hallway with Switch. “And yes, I apparentlyamthat bad.” She turns to her man. “Did you call for reinforcements?”

Switch nods. “He’s a good baker and likely a chaotic teacher, but he offered to walk you through whatever it is you’re trying to make.”

“Just don’t tell Avery I’m here. She loves baking with me, but we’d never get anything finished, and I’d be fifty bucks out of pocket because of my swearing.”

Everyone laughs at that.

“You know, I’m investing all that cash for her,” I say. “Between you and me, we’ll make sure she has enough for college.”

Niro grins. “Let’s work on a house deposit. Bates and Vi are already working on an education plan for her.”

We shoot the shit for a minute more, and then I tell them we gotta go. It takes another five minutes to get to Mrs. Moray’s house.

“So, should I be nervous about meeting the ex–best friend?” Switch says, his tone teasing.

“Fuck off.”

When I pull up outside her house, Calista is on the porch beating the shit out of a rug, coughing as dust flies everywhere.She hangs it over the porch railing and steps back inside. She’s put her long hair up in a ponytail, and it swishes as she walks.