“Whoever said that was never wronged badly enough. Rules serve the people who fit readily within their boundaries and gain an advantage in their being enforced. I’m not one of those people. I live by my own code, and I’m not taking this shit lying down.”

I have nothing to say to that because we could not be more different on that point. Rules keep me safe. Rules are my security, the framework for my life.

An uneasy silence falls between us.

“I regret that I’m frustrating you,” I finally manage. “I know we don’t see eye to eye on this.”

She glances back down at the board. “Understatement of the century. Whatever. It’s fine.”

I stare at her as she assesses the game, warring with myself. Should I consider this? Why would I bend my rules and agree to a plot for revenge—a plot that will routinely not only subject us to each other but require pretending to be in a relationship? Am I honestly entertaining a faux romance—a fauxmance?—with a woman with whom I’ve shared nothing but physical catastrophe and a dozen stinging verbal paper cuts?

Except this past week. Except those text messages. Ben and Addie got along, didn’t they? Why can’t you and Bea?

Damn that moment in the closet. Damn those messages and the smile I felt in them, the laughter I sensed in too many early-morning exchanges. Damn Jean-Claude and Juliet and their so-called friends for making this mess even messier than it was.

Suddenly, Bea’s fingertip grazes mine. I nearly knock over my tea.

“Leftie?” she says.

“What?” I stammer. “Oh. Y-yes. Why do you ask?”

She lifts her left hand, revealing ink marks inside her knuckles. “Me, too.”

Her expression is guarded, but this feels like an olive branch. I take it.

“It’s a hard life,” I tell her, “being on the wrong side of the paper.”

“And door handles.”

“Ten-key number pads.”

“Ooh!” she says. “Bicycle brakes.”

I raise my left arm, revealing the scar along my wrist from a fractured distal radius. I overused the left-handed brake that stopped the front wheel and sent me flipping over my bike. “Learned that one the hard way.”

Our eyes meet for a moment, and a flush creeps up Bea’s throat to her cheeks. She glances away, examines her ink-stained fingers. When her eyes drift toward the window, she goes unnaturally still. “Those gloating motherfuckers.”

My gaze follows her line of sight. The meddlers are still there, now seated on the bench where Bea and I met. Jean-Claude’s sprayed-white head is bent, thumbs moving over his phone. Juliet steals glances at Boulangerie behind dark sunglasses, her own phone in hand as if, not too long ago, it was subtly pointed our way.

“Was she filming us?” I ask.

“Probably,” Bea says between clenched teeth. “Taking pictures. Telling the others.”

“The others?”