Five
When Norah walked into the coffee shop, the familiar smell of roasted beans and sweet things made her smile. The Java Bean wasn’t as cozy and familiar as Chico’s, but she needed a break from the latter place after Devon Leifsen ruined her last visit.
“Norah! Over here!” Laken waved from her spot at a tall table, and Norah’s smile threatened to turn into a grimace.
How did she beat me here? Norah took a surreptitious glance at her phone to see that she was, as planned, fifteen minutes early— seventeen minutes early, even. She preferred being the first to arrive so that she could pick a spot with her back to the wall and avoid the awkward few minutes as she ordered while the person she was meeting stared at her back.
By the time she made it to the table with her cup in hand, her stomach snakes had already woken up and were writhing around. Laken had taken the seat against the wall, so Norah slid into the chair opposite, already feeling squirmy from not being able to see the room without turning around. Even though her logical mind knew it was highly improbable that everyone was staring at her, the insecure part of her could feel dozens of pairs of judging eyeballs boring into her back. Resisting the urge to keep her backpack on her lap as a sort of squishy protective shield, she hung it on the back of her chair.
At least Laken hadn’t jumped up to hug her like she had the day before. Norah had been braced for that very thing and had even taken two precautionary puffs from her inhaler in case Laken’s perfume attacked her lungs again. Instead, the woman just beamed at her from her coveted spot against the wall as Norah settled in as best she could with every nerve on high alert.
“Sooooo good to see you, Nor!” Laken’s smile ramped up another few notches.
Although she eyed the woman across from her with some suspicion, Norah couldn’t help but wonder if she’d misjudged Laken. Maybe she had changed from her horrid teenage self. It wouldn’t be fair, Norah figured, to judge the woman on what she’d been like as a child. Keeping that firmly in mind, she gave Laken a cautious nod. “Thanks.”
“What have you been up to the past five years?” Laken gave her an expectant look over the edge of her coffee cup.
See , Norah told herself. She’s changed. The old Laken would’ve just talked about herself. Unfortunately, the question was one guaranteed to make her mind blank. It was just so broad . A lot had happened in those five years since high school, and most of it wasn’t anything she wanted to share with Laken. She took a sip of her coffee, trying to use the delay to come up with a response, but all she managed wasn’t really an answer to that question. “I’ve been good.”
There was a pause that felt extraordinarily awkward, but Norah didn’t have any other words to use to fill it, so she just kept her eyes on her coffee cup and ignored Laken’s expectant gaze.
“Working with your sisters, that must be fun,” Laken finally prompted.
“Yes.” Norah knew it wasn’t enough, so she dug deep for more words. “It is.”
“And you’re a bounty hunter. How exciting!” This time, Laken picked up the conversational ball right away, and Norah felt a surge of appreciation.
“Yes,” she said, even though Laken hadn’t really asked a question. Honesty made her add, “I don’t really do any of the actual fieldwork though.”
“Still, you do research for your sisters, right?”
Norah studied the other woman’s animated and interested expression. Although her research duties weren’t a secret, there was no reason for a former classmate who lived in a different town to know her role in the family business. Even allowing for maturation and personal growth that could’ve happened between their teenage years and now, Laken’s behavior was odd. It was like her personality had changed completely, and Norah felt distrust push aside her appreciation for Laken’s new, personable ways. “Where’d you hear that?”
Laken’s eyes rounded. “Oh! Is it not true?” Her laugh rang a little too loudly, drawing the attention of a couple sitting a few tables over. “I should know better than to believe any Langston gossip I hear.”
Tipping her head, Norah frowned. “Who was talking about what I do for my family’s business? That’s really boring gossip.”
Although Norah didn’t mean it as a joke, Laken threw back her head and laughed.
Still puzzled, Norah waited impatiently for the woman to give her an answer.
“You know this town,” Laken said with one of her dismissive hand waves. “There’s not much happening, so all gossip is fair game. But enough about boring hometown rumors. Tell me what it’s like to bring in wanted criminals. Your work must be so exciting!”
It took a long moment before Norah could respond. The conversation was taking odd turns she wasn’t prepared for, and Laken’s attempts to redirect felt more like evasion than Norah liked, but she reminded herself to give the other woman a chance. “It’s satisfying but usually not very exciting.”
As she said the words, Leifsen’s creepy messages flashed through her mind, but she pushed them away. Everything in her brain needed to focus on getting through this encounter without suffering humiliation. This wasn’t the time for her to get paranoid.
“Oh, I can’t believe that,” Laken said coyly. “I think you’re just being modest.”
Frowning yet again, Norah shook her head. “It really isn’t exciting. Maybe a little more for my sisters, but for me it’s just a lot of hours in front of a computer.”
Laken hid a tiny frown behind her coffee cup as she took a sip. Catching that brief downturn of the other woman’s mouth, Norah studied Laken, curious about her unexpected reaction. Norah had always loved solving puzzles, and she felt some of her tension fade as she set her mind to figuring out what was going on with her former classmate.
“Tell me about your sisters’ jobs then.” Laken said, affixing her smile back in place as she lowered her cup. “Have they ever chased after anyone famous?”
“Not really.” Norah shifted, uncomfortable with talking about the business. Even giving that evasive nonanswer felt wrong, like she was breaking confidentiality rules.
“Well…” Another of Laken’s micro expressions flickered across her face—frustration this time—and the puzzle solver in Norah added it to the other clues. “Who are they after now? Anyone I’ve heard about?”
Norah didn’t want to talk about Leifsen for several reasons, so she just raised one shoulder in an awkward half shrug. “Just a…white-collar criminal. No one interesting.”
This time, Laken’s mask dropped for a solid two seconds as she glared at Norah. “What about your mom?” she asked. “Have your sisters had any luck tracking her?”
Oh. That’s her plan. The pieces clicked into place, and Norah couldn’t hide her grimace. It seemed that Laken wanted the good gossip straight from the source. “I really don’t want to talk about Mom,” she said flatly, and Laken’s head jerked back slightly, as if she wasn’t expecting to be so bluntly refused.
“I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.” Laken plastered on a look of sympathy, and Norah wondered how she’d ever thought the woman was being sincere. Laken hadn’t changed since high school. She’d simply gotten better at disguising her true motives. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay with everything that’s happened. I mean, being forced to hunt down your own mother… That must be so painful.”
“You didn’t touch a nerve,” Norah said, unable to hold in a sigh. For a short while, she’d thought this coffee date wouldn’t be excruciatingly uncomfortable, but now she knew the truth. It was going to involve Laken trying her best to dig her manicured nails into Norah’s family business so she could rip everything open, exposing them for the entertainment of their former classmates.
She knew she couldn’t sit there much longer without saying something that was truly rude. Glancing at her bare wrist as if she were wearing a watch, she abruptly stood and shouldered her backpack.
“I need to get to my appointment.” As Laken stared at her, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, Norah grabbed her coffee cup and turned to leave. “Bye,” she tossed over her shoulder, not able to conjure up a “good to see you” or an “it’s been fun.” Both would’ve been lies.
“Wait…” Laken said faintly, but Norah didn’t stop, barely slowing to toss her paper cup into the recycling bin.
As she charged through the door into the autumn sunshine, she felt as if a fifty-pound weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Except for her abrupt departure, Norah thought she’d handled the time with Laken pretty well, and now it was over. She just had her session with Dash to look forward to.
Feeling the corners of her mouth tip up, she resisted the urge to bounce with every step. It was hard though. Excitement bubbled through her, lifting her buoyantly until she felt as if she could just float to the gym. A tiny, serious voice in her head warned her that the higher she flew, the farther she had to fall, but she ignored it and simply wallowed in the joy of leaving Laken behind for the prospect of punching Dash.
***
She arrived early. Uncomfortably early. Instead of looking at her nonexistent watch, she should’ve checked her phone and then hid out in an alley for forty minutes, because when she stepped inside the gym, it was packed. She froze, feeling claustrophobic. After previously training with just Dash, the movement of a dozen people—all big men—along with the clamor of clanging weights and grunts and the heavy pulse of rock music was overwhelming.
Norah wasn’t sure how anyone could function with all the distractions, much less learn something. She took a step back, bumping her heel against the door. Her close proximity to the exit reassured her. No one had noticed her yet. All she had to do was slip back outside, linger in the alley for a while, and then return after Dash had kicked everyone out.
Her gaze swept over the place a final time as her hand reached for the door handle. Before she could put her escape plan into motion, however, she spotted Dash…and his eyes were locked on her.
Mentally cursing, she debated whether she should continue her plan to bail and pretend that she’d forgotten a vital item in the car or something. The only problem was that it wouldn’t take forty minutes to retrieve a lost item, so she would just have to deal with walking into the crowded gym again if she did that. Grumbling under her breath, she resigned herself to staying. Now she just had to run the gauntlet of sweaty, curious strangers to get to the other side of the gym where Dash was waiting.
Straightening her shoulders, she locked her gaze on Dash. Just think of it as a video game , she told herself. Dash was the prize she needed to capture, the treasure chest waiting for her at the end of her quest. All she had to do was weave her way through the mats and benches and weight racks while ignoring the grunting beings between her and her pot of gold.
Not allowing herself to hesitate a second longer, Norah strode forward, not taking her eyes off her prize, even as his expression turned quizzical. She only made it halfway when a muscular form stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
“Hey, pretty lady. You must be new.”
Without engaging or even looking up at his face, she slipped around the obstacle and fixed her eyes on Dash again. His expression was now slightly amused, the right side of his lips twitching upward in a tiny, lopsided smile.
“Wait!” the obstacle behind her protested. “We can work out together. I’ll help you with your form.”
She ignored his words, just as she ignored all the other sounds filling the gym as she maneuvered through the second half of her treasure trek. No one else tried to stop her, and she found herself almost disappointed as she neared Dash’s stock-still form. As quests went, that one had been fairly uneventful. Still, her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest, and a triumphant grin stretched her lips as she stopped right in front of Dash.
Norah felt as if she should do something to show she’d claimed her treasure chest, like boop his nose or write her name on his forehead with a Sharpie or make him wear a Property of Norah T-shirt or something.
Unable to think of any claiming gesture that wouldn’t be brutally embarrassing, she just stayed still and quiet.
He watched her with that intently focused stare, his amusement fading as his expression settled back into unreadable lines. “I didn’t have time to kick everyone out.”
“I know. I’m early. I was forced to make a dramatic exit from a coffee shop.” That didn’t seem complete, so she tacked on a simple, “Sorry.”
His left shoulder lifted, wordlessly brushing off her apology. She expected him to question her about why a dramatic exit had been called for, but he simply asked, “You okay training with other people in here?”
She was still buzzing with the adrenaline it took to cross the gym, creating an illusion of invincibility, so she gave a firm nod. “I’ll just keep focusing on you.”
His gaze sharpened even as the corner of his mouth twitched up again. For a moment, he looked like a deeply satisfied lion who’d just eaten his fill of antelope. “Do that.” His eyes flicked down to take in what she was wearing. She almost caved in her shoulders when she remembered she’d bought a new workout top and was wearing it for the first time, but she caught herself just in time and straightened her posture. To her relief, he didn’t comment on the way her new shirt hugged her slight curves. Instead, he just met her gaze and asked, “Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
***