“Models?” Liam stopped walking. He was tall and skinny and had pimples and a sort of perpetual half-asleep expression. His childhood barber still cut his hair, so he looked kind of like a Roman emperor. “Yeah, right.”

Ryan kept walking and Liam hurried to keep up with him.

“They like real-looking models. We just go up to the door and say, ‘Hey, we’re the models.’ Just let me do the talking, okay?”

“Okay.” Liam was pretty sure this wasn’t going to work, but the worst thing that could happen was they’d get sent to the back of the line, which was where they’d wind up anyway.

The Sublime storefront was totally nondescript aside from the distinct purple logo in the window. The windows themselves were papered over to keep bystanders from peeking inside and taking pictures of the drop. Two enormous bouncer guys in navy-blue bomber jackets stood at the door.

Ryan went right up to them. “We’re the models,” he said.

Liam couldn’t believe it. His face felt hot. Good thing it was dark.

“What models?” one of the bouncers asked. His thick mustache turned up at the corners. He looked like an inflated bullfighter.

“We’re modeling the drop,” Ryan explained patiently, like the bouncer was stupid for asking.

“Oh,” the bouncer with the mustache said.

“Let them in, Jimmy,” the other bouncer said impatiently. He was young and had a very thick neck. “They’re late.”

Two pints later, dark had set in. Peaches and Roy were still the only ones in the bar. Then Stuart pushed open the door and held it open for his wife.

Peaches had never officially met Mandy, except for that one time when Mandy was passed out on Stuart’s shoulder on their stoop. She’d expected her to look sick. She’d expected a wheelchair or a walker or a cane. She certainly hadn’t expected Mandy to be flawless and rosy-cheeked with a curvy ass and incredible boobs. She hadn’t expected Mandy to be beautiful, with gleaming black hair, milky pale skin, luminous green eyes, a red bow of a mouth, and super-white straight teeth. She looked like Snow White on steroids.

“Hey,” Stuart greeted Peaches a little nervously. He was worried she’d act overly familiar with him. What if she mentioned all the times she’d checked his hair for lice? Or selling him pot? What if she hugged him? He realized a split second too late that it was he who was being overly familiar. What made things even more confusing and awkward was that Peaches was sitting and talking and drinking with Roy Clarke, whose daughter happened to be babysitting Teddy that night, yet he and Mr. Clarke had never actually met.

“Stuart Little.” Stuart held out his hand.

“Roy. Roy Clarke,” the man said with a charming sort of sputtering English embarrassment.

Stuart glanced at Peaches and touched Mandy’s elbow. “And this is Mandy, my wife.”