When we returned to the clubhouse, I was the human equivalent of an enchilada: hot, damp, and floppy.

I hardly cared.

Bodie trusted me.

Inside, Vaughn and Sterling went straight to the bar. For the first time all day, I was glad PJ was out sick, for the sole reason that I didn't want her anywhere near the human manifestation of an overturned Porta Potty that was Truman Vaughn.

He ordered something off the top shelf, on the rocks. Rebecca ducked behind the bar to make it for him. I wasn't sure how she'd managed to escape the grueling afternoon hike with nothing but a light sheen of sweat on her face.

Because I, on the other hand, was dying.

While the four men congregated around the bar, I padded over to a table across the room and lowered myself into a plush faux-leather dining chair. My calves were cramping and I could still feel the ghost of the strap of Gordon's golf bag digging into my shoulder. I shook out the front of my shirt, trying to dry up the river of sweat between my boobs, and watched the Garland crew flip through channels on the TV over the bar before settling on football. Shocker.

Bodie turned over his shoulder and spotted me at my table.

And then he was marching over, and all I could think about was the fact that my foundation was probably dripping down my neck. I straightened in my chair to keep up the pretense that I was the kind of person who could totally handle a few hours of physical exertion in direct sunlight.

"'Sup," I croaked as Bodie stopped beside my table.

He lifted his hand like he was going to touch my shoulder, then seemed to think better of it—smart call, considering every inch of my shirt was soaked through with sweat.

"Do you want some water?" he asked.

"I can get it mys—"

He was already heading back to the bar to ask.

I must've looked as rough as I felt.

What I really wanted was to slip away to the women's bathroom, unnoticed, and blot my armpits with paper towels. But I wasn't going to look Bodie in the eyes and tell him that.

I peeled my hair off the back of my neck and bunched it up in one hand, longing for PJ and her infinite supply of hair-ties.

Bodie returned with two plastic bottles of water, both so cold they were clouded and speckled with condensation.

"Really, I'm good," I insisted. "I could've—"

I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth as Bodie pressed one of the bottles to the back of my neck. My shoulders pinched up to my ears.

And then I slumped over the table.

"Too cold?" Bodie asked.

"No, s'perfect."

It dawned on me after several long, euphorically cooling seconds that, should Rebecca look over, she'd see her least favorite employee draped face-down over a table during the middle of her shift.

I reached back, fumbling for hold of the bottle.

If I happened to grab Bodie's wrist, first, and then traced my fingers over his knuckles, it was entirely accidental.

"I got it," I told him.

"I don't mind," he said.

"No, no. I'm good. Go be my spy."

I lifted my head to check if it was too early to crack jokes like this, but Bodie was smiling. He shot me a wink over his shoulder as he sauntered back to the bar and took a seat in the empty stool beside Sterling.

I uncapped my water bottle and lifted it to my lips.

Whatever cooling effect this would've provided were grossly overshadowed by the shot of ice that rolled down my spine when I saw Rebecca stalking towards my table, her expression eerily blank.

"Laurel," she said, "can you pop out with me, real quick?"

There went my smile.

I shot one last glance at Bodie. His eyes were locked on the TV screen over the bar, but I could tell he was listening discreetly to whatever Sterling was saying to Vaughn.

He looked like he could handle himself for a few minutes.

I followed Rebecca out into the lobby, where we were alone except for the potted ferns rustling in the air conditioning. The mid-afternoon sun poured in through the glass doors, bouncing up off the freshly-waxed tile floor and blinding me.

"What's up?" I asked, dusting off my khaki shorts.

Rebecca watched bits of grass land on her impeccably clean floors for a moment before she cleared her throat.

A burst of deep laughter carried in from the bar.

"Actually, let's do this outside," she muttered.

My stomach twisted with unease as we slipped through the glass doors together. The front steps of the clubhouse were shaded, but the hot breeze was suffocating.

"We've had a couple clients complain about you, Laurel," Rebecca said.

I went very still.

"Who complained?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

"That's confidential information. But there were complaints, and they were quite serious. I don't want any troublemakers on my staff—"

Once, when I was fifteen and my dad was first teaching me how to drive, I'd lost control of the wheel just before a sharp turn. We'd been in an empty parking lot and I'd been going about five miles an hour, but in that split second of untrained panic, my body had clammed up and my foot had come down on the gas pedal instead of the brake.

I quit, I thought.

We'd hit the curb so hard my dad had cried out.

I quit, I quit, I quit.

Why wasn't my mouth opening?

"—so I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

My overheated brain was lagging.

Finally I asked, "And come back next weekend?"

I wasn't delusional. I was desperate.

I'd never been fired before. I wasn't exactly a shining example of unwavering work ethic, but I'd never made any big mistakes. I'd always straddled the line between model employee and the coworker you complained about in the break room every day. I'd always been comfortably in the middle.

It sunk in, then, that Rebecca had made the decision to get rid of me a long time ago. Maybe the day the article had broken, maybe the day she'd overheard me speaking Spanish with the groundskeepers.

It almost didn't matter.

She was firing me. That was that.

"I'm sorry, Laurel," she said.

But she wasn't. There was relief in her eyes. Triumph, even.

It was the perfect storm she'd been waiting for—PJ, my biggest ally, was out sick, and Truman Vaughn, my worst enemy, was there to serve as witness. I wasn't sure if he'd actually complained about me.

Rebecca would've fired me either way.

In my head, I stormed past her—through the sliding glass doors and back to the bar—and marched right up to Truman Vaughn. I plucked his stupid top-shelf scotch out of his hand and dumped it over his head, and then I grabbed Bodie's hand and we drove off to freedom in my shitty white Corolla.

But I wasn't that brave.

"Um," I said. "Okay. Um. What should I do with my uniform? Do you need it back, or—"

"You can give it to Goodwill," Rebecca suggested. "That's where you get most of your clothes anyway, isn't it?"

It was so juvenile, so cheap a shot to make, that I almost let it slide.

"You can't talk to people like that," I protested, my voice quieter and flimsier than I wanted it to be.

Rebecca cast her eyes up, to the cloudless blue sky.

"And you can't just roll your eyes—"

"Oh, go back to Mexico," she snapped.

The fatigue was gone. In its place came the flood of fury.

My hands shook as I tore across the parking lot. I was so desperate to get the hell out of there, I almost forgot to give my car the extra two seconds she needed to switch her locks off.

When I tugged the driver's side door shut, I made sure to let it slam.

I imagined myself revving my engine, or rolling down the windows and turning the radio to a Spanish music station and just blasting it. I thought about flipping her off, too. Maybe with both hands. Driver safety be damned, I could go out with my middle fingers in the air and my mouth shaping the words fuck you.

But when I drove around to the front of the clubhouse, Rebecca was gone.

In her place stood Bodie.

He was looking for me. I could tell because he had his half-empty water bottle in one hand and the other shielding his eyes from the sun as he peered out across the parking lot. He turned when he heard my engine.

I'd never wanted to be invisible in the literal sense as much as I did in that moment.

I couldn't stop. If I stopped, I'd break.

The last thing I saw before I floored it out of the Garland Country Club parking lot was Bodie St. James in my rear-view mirror. Between the shadowy bruises under his eyes and the horror-stricken expression, he looked like a Halloween decoration.

His face haunted me the whole way home.

_________________

I know that there will be comments criticizing Laurel. I know some people will be mad that she didn't do more to stand up against Rebecca, and that she didn't stop to talk to Bodie. But I'm going to respectfully ask that you exercise empathy.

While I'm here, there were a few comments last chapter about not understanding how Bodie could arrive at the conclusion that he should help with the investigations. This is a first draft. I freely admit that there are things I need to improve—but I can't spoonfeed you the plot! I can't give you a Bodie POV chapter to walk you through his thought process when so much of it is already implied. That's no fun. It is such an honor to watch your discussions and dot-connecting. Keep analyzing the details, and keep reading into things. This story was built to facilitate your imagination.

(We've also got like a quarter of the book left to get through, so I can't tie up all my loose ends juuuuust yet.)

Your friendly author,

Kate