Chapter 12
12
Sloane
They won’t let me have my car.
They won’t freaking let me have my car .
I knew I wouldn’t get my clothes. I knew I wouldn’t get my cat carrier.
But I didn’t expect that they wouldn’t let me have my car.
That’s what finally breaks me, and that’s why I’m now clinging to Davis’s back for dear life as he steers his motorcycle up the side of Anchor Mountain, with Peggy in a backpack carrier that Tillie Jean found for me.
There are fewer houses out here than on Thorny Rock Mountain, Cooper’s mountain, which is exactly what I want tonight.
I just need to be away .
Once Nigel texted that he was arranging to stay at the inn tonight, it was clear that I couldn’t crash on Tillie Jean’s couch, or at Annika and Grady’s house, or at anyone else’s house so that I wouldn’t have to actually go home with Davis.
And part of me is relieved that I can’t stay with any of them.
I don’t want my friends to see just how rattled I am.
I know.
I know, okay?
Your friends are exactly who you should turn to when you’re rattled.
But it’s complicated.
Especially since I realized what’s missing at my house.
Thorny Rock’s coat.
It’s gone.
Tillie Jean’s aunt Bea had dropped it off with me the day before the wedding last week. I was supposed to take it in over the weekend, but I’ve been enjoying the last few days of warm enough weather to comfortably walk to work.
It felt like one of those things that should be driven and not exposed to the elements. Even warm elements.
And after the break-in on Saturday night, I thought anything new would be safer at my house than at the museum.
Because no one knew it was there.
Stupid stupid stupid.
Someone knew it was there.
I grip Davis tighter and lean my helmeted head against his back as he slows for a sharp switchback curve, taking comfort in the weight of Peggy and her carrier on my back, breathing in the chilly night air and the scent of pine and leather, unsure which is coming from nature, and which is coming from the man I’m wrapped around and his coat, which I’m still wearing.
It’s warm.
Enveloping me like a hug.
Giving me the sensation of safety no matter how much I don’t trust safety right now.
It’s not long before we arrive at the trailer deep in the woods.
There’s a single light on inside and no other cars.
He parks next to a pile of what looks like fresh-cut firewood and helps me off the bike.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod and hand over the helmet.
He’s bare-armed with all of his tattoos visible. And he drove us up here like that, despite the fifty-degree weather.
He leads us inside and goes directly to the thermostat, then leaves the camper again.
And that’s when I see it.
Cat litter and a litter box under the kitchenette table. A bag of the cat kibble that I feed Peggy. Two pet bowls on the table beside a pile of cat toys.
My eyes sting.
He said he’d take care of Peggy’s supplies when he offered to let me stay here.
He didn’t say they’d magically appear out of thin air without me needing to make a list and sending him back down to the store.
I set the backpack carrier down on the couch and unzip it so Peggy can explore at her leisure. Once I have her litter box set up and food out for her, I take a minute to escape to the teensy-tiny starkly white bathroom. While I’m in there, I pause to stare at myself in the mirror over the sink.
“You’ve got this,” I whisper to my reflection. “You’ve been through worse. You’re okay now. You’ll keep being okay.”
My reflection stares back dubiously.
Clearly I don’t believe myself.
And have I been through worse?
Have I?
I remember Oliver, the boyfriend who stole half my life savings with that lie about his mom a couple years after I graduated nursing school, and I decide I don’t care to contemplate if this is worse or not.
When I leave the bathroom, Davis is back inside. He’s set a bottle of some kind of alcohol on the compact coffee table in front of the tan leather couch.
And that’s when it hits me that we’re in a camper trailer.
With likely a single bedroom.
And a single bed.
My stomach dips.
This was a bad idea.
I’m definitely sleeping on the couch.
Peggy is hopping from the living room area into the kitchen, eyeing both of us warily. She came to me missing her front right leg, and she hops more than she walks, and she’s my favorite cat that I’ve ever had. The cuddliest, sweetest cat ever.
Not that I’ve had many.
Grandma didn’t do pets. The two older cats I got in college were my first pets.
They both left me not long after half my life savings went to California with Oliver the ex.
“How did you get supplies here?” I ask Davis. “I mean, thank you, but how ?”
“Sarah has a cat.”
Sarah.
Ava’s mom. Beck Ryder’s wife.
He called his friends to help.
My eyes get hot again. “Thank you.”
He nods.
I step into the living room and perch on the edge of the couch, watching Peggy explore.
Davis is watching me.
“What did he take?”
That’s a question I’d rather not answer, but I have a feeling my face isn’t nearly as good as his right now at hiding how I feel about that.
It’s also a question Chester didn’t ask while I was giving him my statement.
I should’ve offered the information, and I didn’t.
He crosses the living room and sits on the other end of the couch. “That bad?”
Worse.
Because I know what it means.
I finally look back at him, and I actively squirm under the intensity of his gaze. “You know Bea? She runs the Grog?”
He nods.
“She gave me a coat that she said was Thorny Rock’s. It wasn’t where I left it. It was this old leather thing, like a trench coat.”
He doesn’t say a word.
“I know. I know , okay? I know I should’ve taken it to the museum sooner, but the museum had the break-in, and you started acting weird, and I thought I should drive it instead of walking it. I had it by the back door. The one closest to my carport. And I only had it for four days. But it was—it was in near plain sight. He didn’t have to wreck my entire house to find it.”
Dammit.
The shivers are back.
They’re making my teeth clack together as Davis watches me ramble while my cat leaps onto the bench at the kitchenette table, sniffing out the cat toys.
I force my jaw shut, trying to stop my teeth from betraying me.
“Tequila?” he says.
I look at the bottle again.
Clase Azul.
I’m unfamiliar with the brand, but the fact that he’d offer tequila instead of vodka or whiskey or rum?—
Has he watched me? Has he quietly paid attention to me when I wasn’t looking?
I clamp down on my inner teenager swooning before she gets a chance to start, and I eye him again. “How did you know I like tequila?”
“You order a shot of the shitty kind every time I’m at the Grog. And if you have three shots instead of just one, you might tell me again that I ruined your life.”
I freeze. “What?”
He smirks. “Never mind.”
“No, not never mind . What are you talking about?”
He shakes his head.
And a little teeny tiny memory of him doing that motion in the Grog knocks something loose in my head. “Oh my god, I said that to you the night that we played darts.”
“In vino veritas.”
In wine, there is truth .
Or in my case, tequila and a bad day make for weakened verbal filters and suppressed memories.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I didn’t mean it.”
His eyes smile. “Heard a lot worse.”
Like tonight.
With Nigel insulting him while he stood between me and my ransacked house.
I shiver harder.
Someone—no, not someone .
My ex-boyfriend broke into my house, completely trashed it, and stole a historical artifact that was supposed to go to the Thorny Rock Historical Museum.
Dammit. My teeth are chattering again. “Dita Kapinski told me the new security system is up and running at the museum. Thank you.”
“Kapinski—your neighbor?”
I shake my head. “My neighbor is Dita’s mother-in-law. Dita lives closer to Tillie Jean’s parents.”
Davis scoots closer to me, pops the top on the bottle, and pours a shot into each of two rocks glasses.
He hands me one.
I down it.
He refills me, then leans back on the couch.
But he doesn’t shoot his tequila.
He sips it.
I sniff my glass.
I’ve never had a tequila that I’ve wanted to sip.
Much like I’ve never had a vodka that I’ve wanted to sip.
Tillie Jean told me once it’s because we only drink the cheap stuff. She’s been to parties in Hollywood because of Cooper, and I get the feeling she’s tried things that are way out of my income bracket.
Probably like this tequila.
I slide a look at Davis as warmth finally takes hold in my belly. “Is this your land now, or are you squatting because you know no one else is using it?”
“Mine. For now.”
“Until you find the treasure.”
“Sure.”
I try a little sip of the tequila, and oh my god .
Not asking.
Definitely not asking how much this cost.
But it’s good.
Smooth. Minimal burn.
I sip again.
After a third sip, I have the courage to ask the question that’s suddenly niggling at me. “If the treasure doesn’t exist, it can’t be found. If it can’t be found, when will people stop looking for it? How long do I have to worry that people will perpetually be trying to take things from the museum, thinking it’s some kind of clue?”
“It exists.”
I shift on the couch until I’m leaning one shoulder against the back cushions and stare at him. “How do you know ?”
“Just do.”
“Because you feel it?”
“Have proof.”
“What proof?”
The fucker doesn’t answer.
Not that I thought he would.
Maybe if I get more tequila in him, he will.
The corners of his lips lift behind his beard.
Just a little, but a little’s enough.
“Are you laughing at my plans to get this information out of you?” I ask him.
He wasn’t in my head. He can’t know what I was thinking.
Except he might.
“Were there any hidden pockets in Thorny Rock’s jacket?” he asks me.
“Why? Do you think there were? Have you seen it? Have you inspected it? If you did, why didn’t you look for hidden pockets yourself?”
The man has the audacity to smile.
Actually smile .
“You’re very suspicious,” he says.
“You’re stalking me after agreeing to fake-marry me because you think I’ll be useful in a treasure hunt for a treasure that might not exist. You almost got into a fistfight with my grandma’s preacher’s grandson, who’s being an even bigger dick than I remember him as. Also, my ex-boyfriend broke into my house and stole a pirate coat. I think I have a right to be suspicious.”
“The last time I did a fake wedding, the bride was more grateful.”
I roll my eyes, which is likely the tequila’s doing. It’s making me mouthy.
And I think he knew it would.
“Excuse me. My humblest apologies for not worshipping at your feet for your magnanimous gesture in insisting that you help me. You are such a man.”
Is his—it is.
His smile’s getting bigger.
His eyes are even twinkling.
I point my glass at him. “Stop it. Do not twinkle. You don’t get to twinkle.”
Shit.
I’m getting toasty.
But I’m not shivering anymore.
Actually—I shrug out of his leather jacket, but not before I sniff it one last time.
It smells like campfire and tequila. Like fresh pine logs and s’mores with a hint of smoke.
When I miss men, I miss how they smell.
But I don’t often miss men.
I hand the jacket to him. “Thank you, oh benevolent king, for the undeserved gift of warmth.”
Fucker smiles even bigger .
And it makes him look twenty years younger.
I used to watch all of the YouTube videos I could find of Bro Code performing, especially after I left Grandma’s house and moved to Copper Valley for nursing school.
Davis smiled like that when he was performing. Regularly in photo shoots that went along with tabloid interviews. On the billboards around Copper Valley advertising the hometown band.
He was far less hairy then, but that smile—that smile was why he was my favorite. It spoke to my soul.
In a parasocial I’m never going to meet this guy and he has no idea I exist kind of way, but it did. It made me believe I wasn’t going to hell.
It made me believe that not only would there always be good in the world, but that I was part of the good in the world.
Now, you don’t see it on him when he’s out in town.
But here he is.
Smiling.
At me.
“Are we in an alternate dimension? Because you don’t do this . This happy thing. What’s going on here?”
“It’s an honor to have your suspicion, my lady.”
I snort. “Sure it is.”
“I like to earn respect.”
“Been a long time since a man’s earned that from me.”
He watches me.
Doesn’t say anything.
Doesn’t drink more of his tequila.
I drink more of mine.
I shouldn’t, but the tequila is in control of my decisions now. And honestly, I could go for some nice, solid, alcohol-induced amnesia about tonight.
“Do you have food?” I ask.
“Yes. Unless you want mushrooms.”
I don’t know what my eyes are doing, but there’s horror coming from everything I was taught growing up, and intrigue from every part of me that I suppressed in an effort to be a good girl who wouldn’t burn in the pits of hell for all eternity.
“I’ve never done mushrooms.”
Is that my voice?
That husky, intrigued voice?
“Portabellas,” he says. “Two-year-old cleaned me out.”
“Oh.”
“Dragon fruit’s gone too.”
“You have a two-year-old?”
“Beck’s two-year-old.”
“Ava.”
“You know Ava?”
“Doc’s seen her occasionally when they’ve been out here. Toddlers get sick all the time.”
“She called me ugly.”
“You’re having quite the day.”
He smiles again, and then he’s in motion.
It’s not chaotic motion though.
Just smooth, slow movements taking him where he needs to be. “Hope you like grilled cheese.”
“Like popcorn better.”
“Buttered?”
“With garlic and parm. Sometimes cinnamon sugar. But not together.”
I feel mildly like I’m being an ass, but every time I get snippy or mouthy, he smiles.
Davis Remington.
Smiling.
Because of me being an ass.
My entire body mellows as I watch Peggy while she continues sniffing out her new surroundings, and then I feel left out because they’re both in the kitchen and I’m not.
When I stumble into sitting at the table, Peggy leaps into my lap and rubs her head all over my boobs.
Davis is quiet while he slices a sourdough bread round on a thick wooden cutting board over the small Formica countertop next to the small sink.
No marble or porcelain in sight.
The floor is a tan patterned vinyl meant to simulate tile. Not some kind of fancy, exotic porcelain that I’m sure some rich people would put into an RV to feel more at home.
Or even budget floor store tiles that normal people might put in their often-used camper.
He drops a pat of butter into a hot stainless-steel skillet, swirls it, then sets two slices of bread down, and tops each with a single slice of deli cheese.
One’s cheddar.
The other—Havarti maybe? Provolone? Not gouda. It’s not yellow enough to be gouda.
I sip my tequila again and glance at the counter. I recognize the butter—it’s from a local farm.
But it’s the popcorn he pulls out of a cabinet that makes me straighten.
That’s not microwave popcorn.
That’s a jar of fresh popcorn kernels.
Be still my heart. The man stocks fresh popcorn kernels in his remote mountain camper.
He has limited cabinet space.
How does he have everything I want?
I count the cabinet doors, all of them painted brown with dull silver knobs, and since this space is tiny, it doesn’t take me long to finish.
We don’t even reach double-digits. Me and my counting fingers.
There’s no way he has a popcorn popper in here.
But he has a cast-iron skillet. With a lid.
“Do you have someone who buys and stocks houses for you?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“You got everything for the kitchen yourself?”
“Usually do.”
“When don’t you?”
“When Vanessa or Ellie or June get the opportunity to decide I’m doing it wrong.”
I know Ellie. Clearly. I stole her boyfriend from her and she’s kind enough to not blame me for it.
I think June is related to Cash Rivers. I saw a news article that mentioned her as part of the coverage of Cooper and Waverly’s wedding.
But Vanessa—I don’t know who Vanessa is. “Is Vanessa your sister?”
“One and only.”
“I forgot you have a sister. Even though you told me you married her. Which I don’t believe, by the way.”
He shifts a look at me.
And this one isn’t blank.
This one is something .
“What?” I say.
He lights the burner beneath the cast-iron skillet. “You don’t trust me.”
Huh. I have the perfect view of Davis’s ass. Which shouldn’t matter, because Smart Sloane knows that Teenage Sloane’s crushes are still men, and men are bad. Men lie, steal, and cheat.
“I don’t trust most men anymore, but honestly, with the Mr. Mysterious routine you have going, I trust you a little less. And a little more at the same time since I know I can’t trust you.”
“Smart.”
“At least I don’t have to worry about you stealing my savings before you disappear into the night.”
He doesn’t blink, which makes me wonder if he knows about that one too.
I don’t talk about it often.
Don’t like to.
When I do, I usually play it off like I’m joking.
But I don’t usually talk about it after tequila.
He switches his attention back to the grilled cheese. “The blond caveman fucked over Vanessa before he met Ellie. Ellie doesn’t know. None of them know. So I’m lying when I say I’m fighting to find the treasure before him just for Ellie. I’m doing it for my sister too. And now you know.”
Did the tequila just say that, or did he?
“Ellie doesn’t need to know either,” he adds. “But you do.”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
“Because I need things from you, so I know I have to give things to you.”
“I don’t like being suspicious. But even when I’ve dated people in Shipwreck with Tillie Jean’s seal of approval, they still did things that were red flags in my world.”
“Not wrong to be suspicious.”
“What if I want to talk to your sister?”
He pulls his phone out and thumbs over the screen, then pockets it again. “If she wants to talk to you, she’ll call.”
“So this man of mystery thing is hereditary.”
He doesn’t smile again, which is disappointing. “Ever been famous?”
“No.”
“Had a famous sibling?”
“Aiden’s biggest claim to fame is that he was the pilot on that transatlantic flight where a B-lister went into labor and a vet on board delivered the baby before they landed.”
Davis slides me a look. “That’s a stretch.”
I grin. “He’s still pissed that the local news crews interviewed his copilot but didn’t talk to him. So no. Neither of us are famous or have even had a brush with fame.”
“I was seventeen when we signed our first record deal. Two years later, my parents got divorced. My father took most of my early money for what he claimed were management fees. Vanessa had to switch colleges twice because of the attention and ended up at a school where she was finally left alone but didn’t fit in either. My grandma leaked our hotel schedule to the press once. Had an uncle who wrote a tell-all. I don’t trust people. That’s the mystery. The whole mystery.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“Still have the family I made before we got famous.”
And I have the family I made after I ran away from home.
We’re the exact opposite.
With every passing year, it’s harder and harder to make myself go visit my grandma, even though I know she has limited time left. While with every passing year, he apparently clings harder to the people from his past.
I wonder if he hopes they don’t move on and forget him.
I would if I were him.
Aren’t they all married with kids now?
No, wait, only most of his friends are married with kids. Not all of them.
I stare at my tequila while I swirl it in my glass. Focus, Sloane . “And the only reason you care about Thorny Rock’s treasure is because you don’t want Patrick to get it?”
He doesn’t answer.
I’m sure he’d say it’s because he’s concentrating on flipping the two halves of the grilled cheese sandwich together, or because the other skillet is hot enough to put in the popcorn kernels now, or something else.
Except I wouldn’t believe him.
A revenge treasure hunt to beat someone who hurt his sister years ago—probably close to a decade ago, given what I know about how long Patrick dated Ellie before he asked me out, which was—stupid math—ah, yes, about seven years ago.
Anyway, doing a revenge treasure hunt a decade later doesn’t make sense. “Why else do you care so much about the treasure?”
Serious brown eyes bore into mine. “I don’t trust you enough yet for that.”
“ Yet implies you think you might. Or that you think I want to earn your trust. Or you want to earn mine. Wait. The tequila’s confusing me. Which way is this supposed to go?”
But even with the tequila, I’m starting to realize just how much he says without moving a single facial muscle.
Like right now.
Right now, he’s saying I just gave you gossip no one else has, so I’m going to find out very soon if we’re doing the next level of this trust thing .
“Why didn’t you tell Ellie that your sister had dated Patrick too? Or your sister? Vanessa? Why didn’t she ell Tellie— tell Ellie what Patrick had done?” I ask.
“We’re tight, but we’re not tell you everything every day tight. I was busy. Vanessa moved out of the neighborhood and made her own life. Ellie was busy. I heard she was dating someone. Didn’t meet him for almost a year.”
“He didn’t know who you were?”
“He didn’t know Vanessa was related to me.”
“ How can you not know that? You’re famous. Everyone should know everything about you.”
He’s smiling as my phone buzzes in my scrubs pocket, and I jump.
I pull it out and stare at a number I don’t recognize.
“Probably your only chance,” Davis murmurs.
Oh shit.
It’s his sister.
“I have her number now.”
That gets me a full-on snort of laughter as my phone keeps buzzing in my hand. “No, you don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
He shakes his head, grinning as he pulls the sandwich off the skillet and plates it on a yellow Fiesta plate.
“How do I know this is your sister?”
“You don’t.”
“How do you know it’s your sister?”
“Because I know my sister.”
Fuck it.
I might be a little tipsy, but I can do this.
I can figure out if it’s really his sister.
I swipe to answer, and before I can say hello? a woman’s voice is saying, “This is Vanessa Remington. Am I speaking with Sloane Pearce?”
“I—yes. How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
Davis is grinning as he bites into the grilled cheese, so I don’t hear what his sister says, because I’m distracted by my surprise. “ Oh my god , I thought you were making that for me ,” I say to him.
“Didn’t say you wanted one.”
“What’s he cooking?” the woman on the phone who’s claiming to be Vanessa and who weirdly sounds like Davis—but in a less-deep voice kind of way—says.
And that opinion about her voice is definitely my tequila talking. “Grilled cheese.”
“Cheddar and Havarti on sourdough?”
“How did you know that?”
“He’s predictable. Why did he let you into his trailer? He never lets anyone new into his trailer. And please don’t lie to me. I’ve had a very long day, and I have no interest in having you investigated.”
I look at Davis, then at his grilled cheese, then at the popcorn he’s pouring into the cast-iron skillet. “Do you really never let anyone in your trailer? What about your house? Do you have a house somewhere? Have your friends even seen it? Also, may I please have a grilled cheese? The tequila isn’t settling too well and I don’t know if popcorn will be enough to help. Oh my god . That wasn’t tequila, was it? Was that some kind of weird truth serum?”
“Are you talking to me or him?” maybe-Vanessa says.
“Him. But I’m back to talk to you because clearly he won’t answer a simple question.”
“Why are you there?” she repeats.
“Because you and I have a mutual ex who broke into my house and trashed it probably as part of his hunt for a treasure that doesn’t exist, and your brother feels a sense of responsibility about it. What’s his name? Our mutual ex, I mean. Not your brother. We both know his name.”
There’s a long stretch of silence on the other end of the phone.
“ Oh my god again. Are you looking it up? Are you texting Davis for the answer? This isn’t really Vanessa, is it?”
“Tell him I’m smiling.”
“Why? Do you smile as rarely as he does?”
Davis slides a look at me, then lifts a middle finger.
The woman on the other end of the phone cracks up. “He’s flipping me off, isn’t he?”
“He’s flipping one of us off.”
Vanessa cackles again.
“Why do you sound so gleeful about that? What the fuck is going on? I know this isn’t just the tequila.”
“Patrick Dixon,” she says. “Our mutual ex is Patrick Dixon. And he wants Thorny Rock’s treasure because he thinks it’s going to destroy our family when he finds it.”
“It’s been—” I pause and count on my fingers, staring at the ceiling, where there’s a butterfly-shaped crack in whatever material makes up the ceiling of a camper trailer, which is weirdly pretty.
When I get cracks in my plaster, it’s always in the shape of a penis.
I have crack envy.
Wait.
Focus.
“Six years,” I finish. “It’s been six and a half years since I dumped him, which means it’s been six—no, almost seven years since he cheated on Ellie with me, which means, if someone is telling me the truth, it’s been at least eight years since he dated you. So why now ? Why does he care now ?”
“Put me on speaker.”
I fumble with my phone and put maybe-Vanessa on speaker. My cat doesn’t help.
The tequila doesn’t either.
“Did that work?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, her voice echoing through the kitchen as the first bits of popcorn start to pop in the skillet.
“Good. Sometimes I hang up on people when I’m drinking.”
“Davis?” she says.
“Yep,” he replies.
“Show her the family tree.”
“No.”
“If you don’t, I will.”
“You were here this morning. You’re not coming back for at least another month.”
“I have her number,” Vanessa replies.
“Is this your real number?” I ask.
“No,” they both answer together.
“How?”
“Magic tricks,” she replies, which is so very Davis that I believe she’s his sister.
“Who are you?”
“That’s classified. But our family tree isn’t.”
“Did you find out Patrick’s related to you?”
“Yes,” she says at the same time Davis says, “No.”
I gasp.
“Fourth cousins thrice removed,” she says.
“Practically no DNA in common at that point,” Davis says. “It’s like saying we’re all related to the king of England.”
My head is spinning.
The popcorn is popping.
Maybe-Vanessa says something else, but I don’t hear it over the popcorn.
I head back to the living room, which smells like campfire and melted cheese.
Why doesn’t my house smell like campfire and melted cheese? In the good way, I mean.
I think about my house, then I think about it being ransacked, and I shiver again.
“Why now?” I repeat to Vanessa. “Why’s he searching for the treasure now ?”
“He’s had a string of bad luck personally and professionally, and he could use a treasure,” she replies.
“Davis?”
She snorts again. “No. Patrick.”
“Oh. Was it…your fault…he had a string of bad luck?”
“No,” she says as Davis says, “Probably.”
Okay.
Yes.
I am fully convinced, no questions, that these two are siblings.
“Did you really fake-marry Davis once?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You’ve used up your quota of questions for the day, and I have to go. Davis, show her the family tree or I’m sending the mothers.”
He’s shaking the cast-iron skillet over the stovetop, but the way his head whips toward me—he heard.
And he’s not happy.
“Who are the mothers?” I ask, but my phone screen flashes. She’s hung up.
“Rude,” I mutter.
Not too surprising though.
She’s Davis’s sister.
It’s probably hereditary.
“What’s with your family tree?” I ask.
He scowls and takes a massive bite out of his sandwich while he keeps shaking the skillet.
Mr. No Expressions is very expressiony today.
Fascinating.
Also—how freaking strong does he have to be to do that with a cast-iron skillet?
He’s not bulky.
But he’s clearly strong.
And I’m getting a stirring down south that I don’t appreciate, which is made worse when I check out his ass again, and then remember how it felt when he kissed me, and then how it felt to cling to him on the motorcycle ride up the mountain to get here.
He’s on the bad list.
But maybe not as high up as he was when we started the day.
“What’s with your family tree?” I repeat.
“You like your friends in town?” he says.
“Very much.”
“For their sake, you don’t want to know.”