I gestured behind him. “Got a maintenance order or something?”

“What?” He looked. “Oh, yeah. One of the players was saying his toilet wasn’t flushing. I’m excited to see.” His chuckle was dry. “But yeah. Let’s meet at the main lodge in an hour. I’ll be sobercab too, so feel free to let loose.”

Let loose. Did he not know me?

“Sounds like a plan.”

He nodded, his eyes warming. “It’ll be nice to hang out like real friends again.”

I gave him a thumbs-up, but as soon as my back turned, my smile fell.

Friends were a commodity I hadn’t had in so long. There’d been no friends from work. I’d faded away from all my friends during the Damian era, because it was too hard to see their normal lives when mine was slipping away daily. You can only talk about what’s going on for so long. People like to say they’ll be there for you, but there’s a time stamp on that offer. What they really mean is that they’re there for you over the next three days. If it takes longer than that, you’re out of luck. You need to move forward, find new friends to confide in.

No one understood unless they were on the “outside” alongside me, because everyone on the “inside” was busy being normal and living a normal life.

So after it ended with Damian, it’d been just Lucas, and yeah, the rest is history from there. So, no friends for me. And now here I was, back where I had friends around me I’d considered family at one point.

Working was easy. I could do that without talking. Jokes? Cheesy lines? I was the queen of those things. Want a random question? My need had simmered down, but I could pull one out if I needed.

But time outside of work, over food and with booze—that meant talking.

Normally, people love talking about themselves, so it’s easy to distract them. But not these guys. Not Hadley, Owen, or Grant. And they knew my tricks.

Yep. Cold sweat.

I could already feel I was on the verge of a breakdown. Again.

But I was tired. Not sleeping tired, but bone tired—tired of being alone, tired of dodging and evading. As I stepped into my cabin, I felt tears starting to roll down my face.

Maybe I should actually tell them? I ran through the conversation.

I’d see pity on their faces. Hadley would start crying. Owen would roll his shoulder back because he’d be uncomfortable. And Grant, he’d be angry. I could only guess at why he’d be mad, but I knew he would be. That was his go-to emotion for situations like that.

I decided instead that I’d get drunk. Problem solved. I was always a happy drunk too, like a Labrador.

Labrador it was.

Chapter Sixteen