“You should come over and play Bounty Wars with us sometime. I’ll tell Phoebe to invite you. See ya.” Owen waves as he turns away. Maeve, who’d been scrolling through her phone the whole time, nudges my knee with hers.
“That was really nice,” she says.
“Stop calling me that,” I grumble, and she smiles.
A tall kid with shaggy brown hair comes through the door, holding it open for Owen to slip out under his arm. He scans the room, his eyes flicking past me and Maeve without much interest and pausing on a waitress arranging condiment baskets in the back. He looks like he’s only a year or two older than I am, but there’s something a little too intense about his gaze. Mr. Santos, counting receipts at the register, glances up and seems to notice it too. “Good evening,” he calls.
The guy crosses half the dining room with his eyes still on the waitress’s back. She turns, displaying a middle-aged face that doesn’t match her bouncy ponytail. Intense Guy shifts his attention to Mr. Santos. “Yo, Phoebe here?” His voice is too loud for the small space.
Mr. Santos leans on the counter, arms folded. “I can help you with whatever you need, son,” he says. No mijo for this kid.
“I’m looking for Phoebe. She works here, right?” Mr. Santos doesn’t answer right away, and the guy’s jaw gets tense. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his green hunting jacket. “You understand English or what, señor?” he asks in a mocking Spanish accent.
Maeve sucks in a sharp breath between her teeth, but Mr. Santos’s pleasant expression doesn’t change. “I understand you perfectly.”
“Then answer my question,” the kid says.
“If you have a food order, I am happy to take it,” Mr. Santos says in the same even tone.
“Look, old man—” The kid strides forward, then stops short when Luis and Manny emerge from the kitchen one after the other. Luis pulls a towel from his shoulder and snaps it hard between his hands, making every muscle in his arms stand out. It’s probably the wrong time to wish I had another guy’s moves, but damn, Luis is smooth. Somehow, he manages to come across like Captain America while wearing a grease-spattered T-shirt and a bandana.
Maeve notices, too. She’s practically fanning herself across the table.
Manny’s not as athletic as his brother, but he’s big and burly and plenty intimidating when he crosses his arms and scowls. Like he’s doing now. “They need you in the kitchen, Pa,” he says, his eyes locked on Intense Guy. “We’ll take over out here for a while.”
Intense Guy might be an ass, but he’s not stupid. He turns right around and leaves.
Maeve’s eyes linger on the counter until Luis goes back into the kitchen, and then she turns toward me. “What the hell was that about?” she says. Her phone vibrates again, and she makes a frustrated sound in her throat. “God, Bronwyn, give it a rest. I don’t care about set design nearly as much as you think I do.” She picks up her phone and angles it so she can see the screen clearly, then pales. “Oh no.”
“What?” I ask.
She holds her phone toward me, amber eyes wide. Maeve Rojas, you’re up next! Text back your choice: Should I reveal a Truth, or will you take a Dare?
CHAPTER TEN
Maeve
Tuesday, March 3
If I text you a Truth or Dare prompt, you have 24 hours to make a choice.
I’m at Café Contigo with a full cup of coffee that’s gone ice cold because I keep rereading the About That post with the Truth or Dare rules. It’s three fifteen on Tuesday, which means I have a little less than three hours before the “deadline.” Not that I care. I’m not doing it, obviously. I was in the middle of the whole Simon mess, and I refuse to take part in anything that makes light of what happened. It was a tragedy, not a joke, and it’s sick that someone is trying to spin it into a fun game. I won’t be Unknown’s pawn, and they can do whatever they want in return because I don’t have anything to hide.
Plus, in the grand scheme of things: who cares about Unknown.
I toggle away from About That to Key Contacts in my list of phone numbers. There are five: my parents, Bronwyn, Knox, and my oncologist. I press my fingertips against the large purple bruise on my forearm and can almost hear Dr. Gutierrez’s voice: