58. The Prep
58
THE PREP
Jake
“Are you sure you want to?” she asked one more time, her voice pitching up with excitement.
My answer remained the same. “Abso-fucking-lutely.” I was as fired up as she was. Hell, I craved this chance, and somehow it was even sweeter because my brilliant woman had connected the dots.
“We’re only going to have a few minutes,” she warned me.
“Well aware of that,” I said, wholly unafraid of the time limit or the dangers.
“And just the one shot,” she added, like we hadn’t gone over the plan and over it again in the last thirty minutes. We were racing around town, rounding up supplies before shops closed. We had a small window to pull this off, and we had to do it tonight. A quick Google search had taken us to a boutique in Georgetown, then another one near Sapphire, and now we were parking outside a little souvenir shop. Her shoulders tightened, perhaps with worry that she wouldn’t find the Trojan horse.
I had faith in her. Completely. “Like a lunar eclipse. Only happens once every few years,” I said as I opened the car door for her.
“But it could come up empty. I don’t even know if I’ll find what I need,” she said.
“Any plan can come up empty,” I said, squeezing her hand, giving her all the reassurance I could. But then, she didn’t need much. She was damn good at detective-ing. “Correction: Anything could come up empty except this,” I said softly, brushing a kiss on her cheek.
She shivered against me.
“Couldn’t resist,” I added.
“Don’t even try.”
In the shop, she made a beeline for the mermaid trinkets and hunted through the shelves for what she wanted.
“What about that little mermaid?” I suggested, pointing to a red-haired one.
“Not sparkly enough,” she said.
Hmm. Fair point. Shiny was key. “How about one that holds more?—”
“Got it!” She pumped a fist.
I did the same, and we headed to the counter.
“And you’re going to have to be quiet as a deer,” she told me. It was cute that she thought I needed a reminder to be stealthy. So damn cute.
I scoffed. “Sweetheart, you and me. We’ve got this.” I squared my shoulders, filled with confidence that came from the two of us together. “We do it like our greatest hits. This one-two punch we’ve got going is the perfect ploy.”
“But what if he hears you? Or what if I can’t distract them?”
“Then we improvise,” I said as we left the store. “That’s what we’ve always done.”
“And you’re sure you still want to do this?”
It was sweet that she’d asked. But I was always game. “Ruby, I promise you this. When it comes to adventure, it’s pretty much impossible to twist my arm. I was born to take risks,” I said, patting my backpack, then pointing to the fiery orange ball dipping toward the horizon. “Now let’s do it. The sun is setting, and the clock is ticking.”