Chapter 23
23
Davis
The first time I saw Sloane in Shipwreck was the week that Ellie was here for a friend’s destination wedding the summer after her car accident. I’d been called up for a Frogger emergency—no, Beck doesn’t know anything ever happened to his Frogger arcade game, and he’s welcome—and I was headed down Blackbeard Avenue, going to join Wyatt and Ellie and tell them I’d fixed what they’d broken, when I felt someone looking at me.
Not unusual.
But what was unusual was that I noticed.
I watched out of the corner of my eye and behind my sunglasses while a redheaded bombshell gaped at me like she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing.
And that’s exactly how she’s staring at the papers laid out in front of her now after analyzing them for the last several hours since we ate dinner, looking at the printed pages of Thorny Rock’s diary as if she believes in the treasure and also agrees that the diary has clues.
While humming a very familiar melody.
That’s “When You See Me.”
An old Bro Code song.
One that we never released as a single.
One I helped write.
And I’m reasonably certain she doesn’t even realize she’s humming it.
There’s a bowl of cinnamon sugar popcorn within reach for her, and I’ve happily reprinted three journal pages after she smudged them with sugary-cinnamony-buttery hands.
I like taking care of Sloane.
And I’m about done denying it to myself.
Until I pulled her into this mess—and I did, regardless of how much she might say she brought it on herself with the fake boyfriend story she fed her grandmother—every time I saw her, she was happy.
I want to do what I can to put the smile back on her face. To give her her laughter back.
Everyone deserves to be happy.
She suddenly sits up with a gasp. “How did I not see this?”
I’ve showered, changed into jeans and a long-sleeve thermal undershirt, and pulled a beanie over my hair, which doesn’t help me feel any less naked, but it’s what I’ve got.
I made the mistake of looking in the mirror at my hair and discovered I do, in fact, have vanity left.
And it’s highly offended.
That’s all I’m saying about my hair, and it’s zero shade to Sloane.
She did what she had to do.
I squat next to her. “See what?”
She wrinkles her nose. “You don’t even have to look closely. It’s right here. And here. And here . He talks about his chicken on every page. Every page .”
“And?”
“There’s a Chicken Rock on that map that came from Sarcasm. I always thought it was what Thorny would’ve named a pet chicken or where his chickens roosted if he got chickens—did people have chickens back in the late 1700s and early 1800s?”
“Chickens are dinosaurs.”
“Oh. Right. Right. We’ve had chickens forever. But he only talks about his chicken. One chicken. And look. Right here. He says all it does is stare to the south. Who has only one chicken? And what chicken spends its entire life staring to the south?” She checks her watch, then winces. “Can’t see Pop, so I can’t go get the actual journal until morning. At least tomorrow’s not Tuesday.”
“What happens Tuesday?”
She snorts. “Like you don’t know. You know everything.”
“Do I want to know what happens on Tuesdays?”
“Pop and Nana have sex in the shower every Tuesday morning, so no one sees them until at least noon. Apparently it’s getting harder as they get older, but they still do it.”
I breathe through the mental image. I did not, in fact, want to know what happens on Tuesdays.
Also, thinking about anyone having sex makes me picture Sloane naked.
Which I also don’t need to do. “Good for them.”
She grins at me. “You’re picturing it, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Liar. Pack up. We’re headed to the museum. I want to look at a map and a couple of the letters that we haven’t put on display yet.”
That’s a plan I can get behind.
I make sure there’s enough food for the cat, then head into the bedroom to grab an extra flannel.
I can mind-over-matter being cold on my bike, but I can also wear extra layers to mitigate how much I have to. And Sloane’s getting the jacket.
Right thing to do.
But when I duck back out of the bedroom, she has the outside door cracked and she’s talking to Chuck, Giselle’s relief partner.
So we’re getting a ride in a car.
Great.
Fantastic.
Favorite thing ever to be at the mercy of someone else for transportation.
I grunt to myself.
Apparently I kept half of my Zen attitude in my manbun, and that’s fucking gone now.
“Anybody watching the camper?” I ask Chuck.
He gives me a look.
It’s the you want security, get it yourself, my orders are to guard the lady look.
Thought so.
It’s basically what the wall of texts that I finally caught up with confirmed for me this morning.
Davis can take care of himself. Sloane deserves to feel safe. Giselle’s the best. I’m sending Giselle.
And that was from Ingrid.
Not Levi.
I text Beck and ask to borrow one of his people to guard Sloane’s cat. I’m not leaving her alone when we don’t know if the raccoons will come back, and they’re actually the least of my worries, given what’s already been done to Sloane’s house.
Then I gather what I need for a treasure hunt.
Trail mix. Water. Compass. Emergency space blankets. Spare flashlight. Pocket knife. Backup pocket knife if I lose the first. Battery for my phone. Backup phone that doesn’t connect to Wi-Fi or cell towers anymore, but that has a copy of Thorny Rock’s diary.
And it is Thorny Rock’s diary.
Handwriting matches. Details that only Thorny should’ve known match.
Which means Pop, descendant of Walter Bombeck, somehow came into possession of the real Thorny Rock’s diary.
Or someone up his genealogical line did.
We might be on a wild goose—ahem, wild chicken —hunt, but it’s a lead I didn’t have before.
Sloane watches me loading up my backpack. “You think we’re actually going treasure hunting tonight?”
“Ready if we are.”
By the time I’m packed, Beck reports that he has a cat-sitter inbound for us, so Sloane and I climb into Chuck’s SUV, and soon, we’re pulling into Shipwreck.
Blackbeard Avenue is empty. The Grog’s closed. Don’t even catch sight of the cussing parrot that’s usually flying all around town.
“Where are the goats?” I ask Sloane. It’s unusual to be in Shipwreck and not see random goats wandering around.
“Every last one got rounded up before the wedding. They’re being sorted to figure out which ones still need to be fixed so that the goat population dies down.”
“It’s taking this long?”
“Tillie Jean’s also trying to get as much glitter cleaned up as possible before letting them loose again so that they don’t track it worse all over town.”
“Even Grady Rock’s goat?”
“Oh, no, Sue’s still at Grady and Annika’s house. And their house is already glittered, so that part doesn’t matter.”
That tracks.
Cooper’s the reason Tillie Jean outlawed glitter bombs, so it would be surprising if the third Rock sibling didn’t also have a glittered house problem.
Chuck pulls up behind the museum. Sloane hops out faster than either Chuck or I would like, and by the time I circle the car to join her, she’s already hitting the code to get into the museum.
“Ma’am, if you’ll wait a minute—” Chuck says, but Sloane doesn’t wait.
She’s not used to security details.
And that’s a problem.
Especially because the minute she flips on the light, she screams.
I grab her and pull her out of the way, diving into the back room of the museum myself, and when I spot what she’s screaming at, my blood pressure threatens to pull a Mount Saint Helens.
I need my goddamn manbun back.
It clearly held my peace and calm.
“What. The fuck.” I glare at the intruder who’s pushed himself against the side wall, nearly out of sight, but not entirely.
He’s balding, in his mid-sixties, with a slightly bigger belly hanging over his belt than he had the last time I saw him.
Lila’s Uncle Guido grins at me. “Your sister’s lying to you.”
No shit.
But if this fucker thinks that’s gonna offend me or throw me off with that statement, he’s wrong. Vanessa and I have been through thick and thin. I know when she’s holding information back because she knows I’ll use it wrong, and she knows when to hold information back because she knows I’ll use it wrong.
I stifle a growl of my own. “Why are you here?”
“Oh my god, you know this guy?” Sloane’s voice is high-pitched, and she’s breathing hard. Takes everything in me to not pull her into a hug and promise her everything’s fine.
There’s a no-touching rule with Sloane.
I know where it goes if I let myself touch her, and yes, it went there—my dick, specifically—even when I was trying to save her from the fucking raccoon that jumped on her head.
Maybe it’s not the manbun. Maybe it’s the treasure hunt, and I need it to be over.
“Yes, I unfortunately know this guy,” I tell Sloane.
Chuck’s nowhere to be seen.
Likely because nobody in our circle likes dealing with Uncle Guido, but we all know he’s harmless.
Mostly.
Scared the ever-loving fuck out of Tripp a time or two when he first hooked up with Lila, and even I don’t know why Uncle Guido had to leave the CIA, but he’s still mostly harmless.
“Who is he?” she asks.
“This is John.” I don’t take my eyes off of Uncle Guido. “He’s a menace.”
“How did you get in here?” Sloane demands.
“I can answer that for you, sweetheart, or I can— oof .”
I blink.
Blink again.
Uncle Guido’s bent double as my metal water bottle clatters to the floor beneath him.
I look at Sloane.
Unlike me, she doesn’t hold back. She growls at Uncle Guido, “Do. Not. Call. Me. Sweetheart.”
My backpack is one water bottle lighter, and it happened so fast, I barely noticed. “Did you just maim him with a water bottle?”
Is that reverence in my voice?
I do believe that’s reverence in my voice.
She turns a glower on me. “Get rid of him.”
“Jesus H. Christ on a salami panini,” he pants. “I think you broke a rib.”
I grin. “Hope you want lifetime season tickets to the Fireballs,” I tell Sloane. “When Tripp hears about this?—”
“You want the fucking diary or not?” Guido’s still hunched over, panting.
“I want you to not fucking break into my museum ,” Sloane snaps. “Davis, break his fingers.”
Huh.
Look at that.
I’m smiling so broadly that my cheeks hurt.
Hasn’t happened in a while.
Hence it doesn’t take much to make them hurt.
“I’d like the diary, and I’m not sure breaking his fingers is the fastest route to getting it,” I tell Sloane.
“How do you know he has it?”
“Wouldn’t be here if he didn’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because he asked if we wanted it, and he knows that if I call my sister and tell her he’s breaking into museums for no good reason, he’ll disappear for a while.”
Sloane turns the growl on me.
And it takes me a minute of breathing through the need to pop another boner to remember something critical about this situation.
She’s missing a piece of this puzzle. “John here—a guy most of us call Uncle Guido—got fired from the company my sister works for.”
“What company?”
“The CIA, darl—Darlilah. I missed your name. You said it was Darlilah, right?”
“Darlilah is not a name you would suspect me of having.”
“Why not? You never know someone’s history. If you want to throw something else at me because you think I was going to call you a name you don’t want to be called, you should know I have fast reflexes when I’m paying attention, and I’m happy to take a lighter to this diary that I picked— arrggghhhh! ”
Sloane screams again but cuts herself short.
Probably because she’s recognized that it’s Chuck currently trapping Uncle Guido in a chokehold, and only Uncle Guido is in danger.
“ How the fuck did you get in here too? ” Sloane says.
I take a step back.
Break the rules.
All of the rules.
And I slip my hand into hers and squeeze. “Uncle Guido—I mean, John’s harmless. Especially with you and Chuck on the job.”
“Why does he have two names and why is one of them Uncle Guido and how do you know him? And the CIA? Are you for fucking real right now? Do you work for the CIA too?”
“Vanessa does. I do not. His real name’s supposedly John. John Smith. Hence the supposedly. What I can tell you for certain is that he’s Lila’s honorary uncle.”
“Lila, the owner of the Fireballs? Tripp’s wife? That Lila?”
“That Lila. Hence I hope you like the Fireballs because Tripp will love that you maimed Uncle Guido.”
She’s squeezing my hand back hard enough to cut off circulation. “ How did he get in here? ”
“I hid in the bathroom when they were closing up,” he squeaks out.
Sloane’s eyes cross.
I jerk my head toward the door. “Get him out,” I tell Chuck.
“You want the diary?” Uncle Guido says.
“This diary?” Chuck holds up a very old book with his free hand, and my pulse leaps at the visual confirmation that Uncle Guido wasn’t lying.
He fucking stole Thorny Rock’s diary from Pop Rock.
He tries to twist and grab it. “How’d you—shit. I’m getting soft.”
“Time to retire from retirement,” I tell him.
Sloane squints at me. “What does that even mean? Never mind. Chuck, may I please have the diary?”
“Only person I’d give it to,” Chuck replies.
He marches Uncle Guido out of the museum, handing the diary off to Sloane on his way, leaving the two of us alone inside.
With Sloane still gripping my hand.
And my cock noticing.
She frowns as she looks at the book in her other hand. “This isn’t the diary.”
“What do you mean, this isn’t the diary?”
“This isn’t the same diary that Pop has. It’s not Pop’s Thorny Rock diary.”
I stare at the leather-bound book in her hand. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. Pop’s cover is blue. This cover is brown. Pop’s cover has a sail burned into the leather on the top corner. This cover doesn’t. It’s not the same diary.” She unclasps her hand from mine so she can flip it open gingerly. “And those aren’t the same pages that I copied for you that I’ve spent the whole night looking at.”
Fuck .
So whose diary is it?
And where did it come from?
Gonna have to read this one too. See if the handwriting matches.
Fuck me.
Did someone else find the real treasure?
“Stay here,” I tell her.
“What? Why? Where are you going?”
“To check the rest of the museum.”
She blinks at me, then grabs my hand again. “How much more security do we need?”
Isn’t that the question?
Since she won’t let go, she comes with me as I sweep the building, making sure no one else is hiding out in any bathrooms or corners or in any hollow cases beneath any displays.
Chuck joins us, giving me a side-eye.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Leave security to the security people.
Especially if Sloane insists on checking everything out too.
We all finally agree the museum is empty.
Chuck strategically parks himself with a view of both the front door and the entryway to the bathrooms.
Sloane and I head back to the workroom.
She’s still holding my hand.
And my pulse won’t slow.
I like her.
She’s brave. She’s smart. She’s compassionate.
She has ghosts, but she’s doing her damnedest to live her best life despite the ghosts.
I admire that.
I like that .
Situational attraction , I try to tell myself. You fell off the wagon and licked her pussy, and now you’re confused, but this isn’t real .
Unfortunately, I don’t believe myself.
As I shouldn’t.
She looks up at me when she should be pulling her hand back so that we can get to work. “Do you know what’s incredibly stupid about this whole thing?”
I shake my head.
“The pages I copied for you from the journal Pop has—the writer talked all about how he deserves that treasure and he earned that treasure and he can’t wait to get his hands on that treasure again, but he stole it. He stole it . It shouldn’t belong to him. It shouldn’t even belong to Shipwreck or Sarcasm. It should belong to its original owners. But people are still here, over two hundred years later, committing crimes in the name of getting rich. Just what the fuck? You know? No one deserves to be rich. Deserve to be loved? Yes. Respected for who they are? Yes. Rich? Fuck right off. I’d rather be a good person and have fewer things but know that I didn’t step all over people to get what I have.”
Fuuuuuck .
She needs to stop talking, because every time she talks, I like her even more.
And I can’t.
Even if it’s not situational attraction, once we’ve located the treasure and gone through with the fake wedding, we’re done.
Done .
Because I don’t do relationships.
The last time I tried—yeah, I don’t talk about that either.
I swallow.
Then swallow again.
She squints at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Do the goddamn job, Remington. Look at the diary. Look at maps. Find the treasure. Do the right thing .
The right thing is not kissing Sloane. Again.
It’s not.
Except it is.
This is Denver.
This is obsession.
This is proving to myself that I can do something that I shouldn’t do.
This is danger.
I can’t stop myself.
And I don’t want to.