Chapter 25
The Wags were all in various states of shock after Pretty Paul left us standing around the dug-up grave, empty-handed and
depressed. Seb blamed himself for befriending Paul all those years ago. Jazmine was trying to hide it, but she was clearly
wounded by Paul’s betrayal and swore to us that she never once mentioned the treasure hunt to him.
“I talked about treasure hunting back in the day, when we were kids,” she told us. “But I never said a word about this hunt.”
She didn’t have to, not when Lulu was doing all the work. I knew Jaz was reeling over Paul’s betrayal, but she wasn’t the
only one. Benny let a stranger into his life, and she manipulated, lied, and tricked him at every turn. He wasn’t some gregarious,
open guy who dated on the regular. He must’ve really liked her.
“How could I have been so blind?” he said as we tried to console him. I couldn’t imagine how it felt to be in his shoes, all
I knew was that I was furious on his behalf.
Furious for all of us.
Treasure or no treasure, those rings belonged to me.
My family. My history. And I would get them back by any means necessary.
Easiest would be to track Paul and Lulu and surprise them before they left the area, get the gun away from him without getting anyone hurt.
I briefly tried to follow their tracks into the woods, to see where they’d come from.
No nearby roads, so they must’ve hiked for a good bit.
“How did they even find us out here?” I asked, stunned.
No one said anything, then Benny groaned, fishing out his phone. His fingers quickly flashed over the screen, then he squeezed
his eyes shut. “Fuck. She must’ve flipped on location-sharing on my phone.”
“Can you still see her location?” Seb asked.
He showed us. The blip on the map was moving at a pretty good clip away from the war encampment. She wasn’t walking anymore,
she was inside a vehicle. Seb and I hiked a little farther in their general direction with Punkin and found an unmarked dirt
road with fresh tire tracks.
“Son of bitch,” he said under his breath. “These are motorcycle tires. Skinny ones. Maybe motocross.”
I blinked at him. Where had I recently heard about a pair of motorcycles . . . ?
Oh God. “Paul and Lulu,” I said. “They were the ones who broke into the cottage and trashed it!”
Seb lifted his head to the tree canopy and let out a frustrated yowl. “When is he going to stop fucking me over?”
“He fucked us over,” I pointed out. “All of us Wags! That was his mistake. We won’t catch up with him today, but he’s a dead man walking,
as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know how, yet, but we’re getting those rings back.”
It was one thing to believe that in a moment of fury and hurt.
Another thing to keep believing it when you’re stuck in a Land Rover for hours on the ride back home, scratching mosquito bites, and everyone’s mental states are sinking.
I think we all blazed through several stages of grief during the return trip, each for our own reasons.
And when our perfect summer day took a turn for the worse, and dark clouds formed over Lake Michigan, it was the cherry on top of the whole shit sundae.
We dropped off Jazmine at the marina first. Her mom met us at the Land Rover and helped Jazmine carry her stuff inside. When
she asked what was wrong with all of us, Seb said, “You’re looking at a crew of fools right now, Mrs. Neely. Once we get over
the feeling of being duped, we’ll be okay.”
“Well, can you get over it by tomorrow? We’re having our first Sunday brunch of the summer. I want you all there, okay?”
Sunday brunch was an honored Neely tradition. Anyone who was important in town had showed up for mimosas and eggs over the
years. What could we say but yes?
I hugged Jazmine hard and repeated Seb’s assurance that everything would turn out all right eventually. But at the moment,
we were all going through the motions.
Benny dropped off Seb and me at the cottage next, and he was so down, I begged him to stay with us instead of going back to
an empty house. But he declined. “I’m terrible company right now,” he told me. “Let me lick my wounds.”
After unloading our stuff, Seb and I watched Benny pull out of the driveaway right as the darkening skies lit up with lightning.
A summer storm was here. Nothing to do but round up Punkin after she took a long pee on Mr. Legs and hunker down inside.
Seb dropped our bags in the middle of the living room floor as rain began falling against the roof. “Welp. This was not the
homecoming I fantasized about,” he said.
“Same.” I dragged the cooler into the kitchen and unloaded the remnants of our food into the fridge. “Never in a million years
would I have thought I’d have a gun pointed at me.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve already had the pleasure on more than one occasion. Not a good feeling. I’m sorry, Paige. I know I keep saying it, but Christ.”
“And I’ll keep saying that it’s not your fault. You can’t control another person’s behavior. Paul chose to be dick.”
“It’s his fucking father. Paul would be a different person if it weren’t for Big Burg.”
I closed the refrigerator door. “Paul’s in his twenties. He can make decisions for himself. You grew up. Why can’t he?”
Seb puffed out his cheeks and exhaled heavily, crossing his arms behind his head as he leaned back on the sofa. “Don’t know
the answer to that, but I can only see one solution to this problem right now, and that’s breaking into Big Burg’s compound
and stealing the rings back.”
I slammed the refrigerator door. “Absolutely not. And if you do try to sneak off and do that, and you get yourself killed,
I will be furious at you for the rest of my life.”
“Damn, Paige,” he said. “You look a little furious now.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m just sad, I guess. The past forty-eight hours have been a roller coaster.”
He wasn’t wrong. I closed the cooler. There was still a lot of mostly melted ice inside, but it was too big to dump in the
sink.
Thunder struck near the cottage. It was really coming down out there.
“What a mess,” Seb said, looking out the window as Punkin settled herself on the rug in front of the fireplace. “Guess our
no-clothes rule is going to have to wait.”
I hesitated at the kitchen island, pretending to look through the mail as a wild thrill zipped through me. “Does it?”
I couldn’t see his face from where I stood. But something in the air between us shifted radically, and the cottage suddenly felt a lot smaller.
A floorboard creaked behind me. “I suppose, on one hand,” his voice said, a little closer than it had been, “it feels disrespectful
to be thinking selfish thoughts when Jaz and Benny are sitting home alone, depressed.”
“Invite them over, then.”
Another step. “Eh, I’m all for experimentation, but I’m a one-woman kind of guy.”
I smiled to myself and straightened the bills. “You said, ‘On one hand it feels disrespectful.’ What’s on the other?”
“Well,” he said behind me, very close now. “On the other hand, maybe getting naked would cheer us both up. You know, like
being on an airplane when you’re about to crash—everyone knows you don’t help others until you put an oxygen mask on yourself.”
“Sure, yep. That’s logical,” I said as my stomach took a nervous dip.
“The logical thing to do,” he agreed, breath tickling the hair on the back of my head. “Practically our sacred duty, don’t
you think?”
“Can’t ignore a sacred duty.” I dropped the bills and turned around as my heart hammered. We both looked at each other and
chuckled nervously.
After a rumble of thunder, he reached for my face, fingers gently trailing down the hair that framed my face, tucking a tendril
behind my ear with a trembling hand.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Stop thinking, analyzing, and second-guessing. It’s just us.”
“Just us,” I whispered in agreement. His face was so close. Our breath intermingled. “Don’t think.”
“That’s right. Don’t think . . .”
His hands cupped the back of my head as his mouth came down on mine. His kiss was soft and gentle, achingly slow. Pleasure
rippled through me, and an unbidden moan escaped. Seb’s hands tugged at the hem of my shirt, questioning, and before I could
think—or not think—I lifted my arms above my head and allowed him to take it off.
His heavy-hooded gaze roamed all over my skin. My heart hammered wildly against my rib cage when he lightly traced his finger
down the valley between my breasts. Barely a touch at all, but it caused battalions of goose bumps and made me shiver.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, letting his hand fall away while he licked his lip and blinked for a moment. Then he reached
over his shoulder and pulled his T-shirt over his head, tossing it aside. His bronzed chest lifted and fell hypnotically under
my gaze.
With increasing urgency, we stripped off the rest of our clothes. Shoes, shorts, underwear . . . it was as if the very fabric
was burning our skin, forcing us to get rid of them as fast as humanly possible.
There. Both of us naked. Once I kicked away my shorts and got over the shock of it, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Difficult not
to. His erection proudly jutted out between us.
“Jesus,” I mumbled.
“Is that a good Jesus or a bad Jesus?”
“You’re practically a work of art,” I said appreciatively.
His low chuckle sent a rush of pleasurable chills over my skin. “Well, then. High compliment, coming from you.” He slid an arm around me to pull me in closer, and I felt his heavy length pressing against my stomach.
So much warm skin . . . I faintly smelled remnants of the day, soil and mosquito spray, and, underneath it, just Seb. I was
going to lose my mind.
He held me against him and looked down at me, a halo of wild, blond waves floating around his face. “It’s always been you,
always,” he whispered. “Tell me you want this, too. Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I whispered desperately.