A knock on my door.

“Who is it?” I cringed, not knowing if my voice even sounded normal anymore.

“Hey.” It opened and it was Reba. She was frowning, but to be honest, I was more paying attention to the three people at the coffee machine, and the smell of whatever Boomer was cooking, and—what did she just say?

She was looking at me.

She’d already said it.

Crap.

“I’m sorry. What’d you say?”

I had to concentrate this time. Harder. The hardest. The hardiest of the hard…and I missed it again.

She was frowning, and then a bulb clicked on and she came inside.

Oh, that helped. A little.

But I could hear the voices outside, and the clatter of pots and pans, and was there a larger than usual amount of people here today?

I must’ve asked Reba that, and she was looking at me all concerned. Shit. She knew. I walked inside with an extra bounce in my step, thinking I’d been slaying this dragon, and now I was in full-fledged panic attack mode even before the worst of the worse got to me.

“Cheyenne.”

She was speaking calm, and low, and she totally knew.

“Yeah?”

“Are you off your meds?”

An unhinged laugh came out of me, and before I knew it, I was laughing like a banshee. Head bent over my desk and I couldn’t stop. Full freak-out here I come.

It wasn’t usually this bad, or so soon. The panic hysteria was extra because Cut was coming back today. This morning. He might already be here.

I think he was, actually.

He said something about a meeting downtown, too. Or was that tomorrow?

I should’ve texted him.

Had I already?

Had he not texted me back?

Was he getting sick of me already?

But no. I was remembering that we had texted last night and there’d been a good morning text from him when I woke up, but he was on the plane. They did come back super early today.

I couldn’t remember the reason, but there’d been a reason.

Wait. Was that today? Tomorrow?

I was losing time now, too.

The charity event was tomorrow night, and last time I handled it by jumping into his pool and swimming for thirty minutes. This time, I didn’t know what to do. More running? I already ran five miles. I already did yoga.

I was already eating healthy.

I was already doing meditation.

I was already trying so hard to be so fucking perfect and no one got it.

“Hey, hey.”

Another knock on my door. This one was rough and abrupt, and the door opened. Dean came in, not looking, not waiting for permission. He took a step inside, not even looking over, already saying, “We have a surprise for you.”

Oh God.

I closed my eyes and let my head hit the desk, cradled by my arms.

Let me hide now, please world.

“Get out!”

“What? What’s going on? Cheyenne?”

“No. Out. Now. You knock and then wait for permission to come in. What if she’d been changing clothes, huh? What if she’d been on a private call? What if she just found out her grandmother was dead?”

“What? I’m confused. Her grandmother passed away?” He dropped his voice. “She never talks about family. I had no clue.”

Reba made a gargling frustrated growl. “Out. Now. And while we’re at it, meeting’s postponed till tomorrow.”

“What?! I have to finalize everything for tomorrow. I need to loop you guys in on everything.”

“Oh, why do you care now? You didn’t care when you made the decision to move forward with the event, and you’re the one who decided the invite list. This is your thing. You handle it on your own.”

“We have celebrities coming today to help serve. I wanted to tell Cheyenne who they were. What’s going on? Is there something going on I need to know about?”

“Out. Now.” Reba was firm, and she really needed to do more than watch Netflix every night. I had a feeling she’d be a trip in Prankland Territory.

I needed to gather myself, and I could do it.

I was freaking out on the inside, but faking and forcing was another motto I enforced. I was enforcing it now, and lifting my head, I made out that Reba was standing in front of Dean. She’d actually gotten him back outside the door and he couldn’t see past her.

I loved Reba. I really loved Reba.

The rest of the room was swimming and blurring together. Little bubbles were showing everywhere, but I could do this. A deep breath. Another one. A third one.

I dabbed at my eyes, making sure nothing leaked up there, and I wiped my hands over my face.

Calm.

Control.

No.

Fake.

Force.

Let’s do this.

I stood and came around my desk. “Dean.” Damn. My voice was a little wobbly. I swallowed and tried again, hearing it crack before it came out with authority. “I agree that there’s no point to our meeting about tomorrow. You’ve finalized everything already. You just want to cover your ass, tell the board you okayed everything with us if you get called up in front of them.”