Daniella closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath before she reopened them. She was hungover. She was tired. Imogen had gotten her hair all over the bathroom. The way this day was going, Rinn would probably try to kiss AJ at some point and Daniella would end up having to talk to both of them about it. Eli, Daniella knew, had a secret. She could read it across that crinkle in his eyes, in the way that new dusting of fresh summer freckles jumped as she spoke.

“Can we skip the preamble and get down to the part where you tell me if you found this missing transaction for nine thousand dollars?”

“What?” asked Eli, as if he were as innocent as one of the seraphim.

Daniella knew deep in her bones that God never gave anybody dimples like that unless they were absolute hell-raisers. “Did you know about it?”

Eli glanced at Daniella, and then away again. “No.”

Ah, guilt. She could hear it in his tone. See it in the way he stood—tensed and defensive. Ready for a fight. But Daniella couldn’t say where the guilty conscious was coming from or why it was there. She just knew its presence, all its hallmarks greeting her like an old friend. Daniella took a guess. “How did you figure out the store was closing?”

Eli’s guilt must have taken a determined turn, because he gritted his teeth and dug in his heels. “Everything just seemed off in the store. That’s all.”

“You had a feeling, so you just decided to text me and start ringing alarm bells?” Daniella tilted her head to really emphasize the point. It was vague enough to be believable, especially if you believed that Eli was a screwup. But Daniella didn’t buy it.

“I didn’t ring alarm bells. I told you that something was up. And I told you not to tell anyone. And I bet when you checked, you saw what I was talking about. You’re just mad you didn’t find the problem first.” Eli raised an eyebrow like he’d made a real point there.

And unfortunately he had. She hated that she hadn’t discovered this months ago. She took such pride in seeing numbers as they were. Numbers were honest. Numbers, theoretically, didn’t lie.

“You’re such a brat, do you know that?”

“I know.” Eli gave a smug nod. “And I’m right. You are mad you didn’t find the problem first, math nerd.”

“Whatever,” said Daniella. “Stop deflecting. I need you to tell me how you figured any of this out. For real.”

“Make me.” Eli smirked.

And even though he had just admitted to not telling the whole truth, even though Eli had definitively just conceded ground, Daniella’s irritation flickered from low levels of radiation to a full-blown nuclear meltdown.

It was the smirk that had done it.