Chapter 52

PIERCE

"I can’t believe we’re doing this," Katy said, rolling her fingers back and forth over the top of her jeans as she sat in the passenger side of my car.

I stopped at the sign on the corner of Bayside and Main street and turned to her. "It’ll be okay."

We hadn’t even been an official couple for twelve hours yet, but we both understood we needed to get ahead of the gossip chain in Pelican Bay. If we left the townspeople—especially Pearl—to their own devices, they would concoct a crazy story. We had to set the narrative to our future and guide the direction and conclusions people drew before the evening’s phone tree.

That’s why first thing Monday morning, after lazily getting out of bed, we agreed to announce our new status as soon as possible. Hopefully my cousin Jerome wouldn’t be too ticked when I didn’t make our 11:30 lunch meeting. I’d brief him on the status of his building later. In email.