14. “Do you want him to catch us?”
“DO YOU WANT HIM TO CATCH US?”
YASMINE
Ididn’t know how this kept happening to me.
And no, that wasn’t rhetorical. I would’ve loved an answer.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Ava had announced that Grant had some company thing she had to attend and, in her absence, she expected us to conduct light surveillance on Hale’s movie date.
I had said no.
Very clearly.
So how in the hell had I ended up sunk into a theater seat with a laminated menu that smelled like old popcorn butter?
Annie.
Annie had shown up outside my apartment with Tabby riding shotgun and a text that said, We’re here. Somehow, instead of locking my door and pretending I had never met either of them, I’d grabbed my purse.
“Lean back,” Tabby hissed from my left.
“What?”
“Recline. Get low.”
“Why?”
“Do you want him to catch us?”
“It’s dark, Tabby, and they’re not even—”
“They just walked in. Get down.”
Annie, on my right, obeyed immediately and without question. Her recliner hummed backward, footrest lifting like a surrender flag. I followed, lowering myself until I was staring at the ceiling, the screen, and the poor choices that had brought me there.
The three of us raised our menus to chin level like we were deeply, academically invested in the appetizer section.
“The menu isn’t going to work,” I said from behind mine. “We already ordered.”
“It’s called a prop,” Annie whispered. “Shut up.”
The server came back to confirm Annie’s burger modifications, then stopped at the end of our row to assess the situation. He looked like a man who had seen a lot of things in this job and wasn’t paid nearly enough to figure out what our deal was.
“Confirming the burger, no onions, extra pickles?”
“Yes, please,” Annie said, eyes forward.
Tabby dropped her menu and flashed him a perfectly normal, warm smile, like she hadn’t been running tactical evasion thirty seconds earlier. “And could I get the truffle fries?”
“Of course.”
“And whatever cocktail tastes the most expensive,” I said, because at that point it felt like the only correct response to the situation.
He nodded once, professional, and left without commenting. I watched him go and considered tipping fifty percent.
“They’re sitting,” Tabby said, voice low. “Two rows up. Left of center. I think we’re good.”
We sat up.
“She’s tall,” Tabby noted.
“Great.”
“Very put together. Cute jacket. Sweet pixie cut, wonder where she gets her hair done.”
“Tabitha.”
“I’m setting the scene, chill.”
The lights went down before I had to respond, the first mercy extended to me all evening.
The previews rolled. I ordered myself to look at the screen and nowhere else, which was easy, because I was a grown woman with self-control and there was no reason for me to care who Hale went to the movies with.
The movie started with a wounded man pushing through the doors of a country church, blood-streaked and silent. Annie made a small, involuntary sound next to me, somewhere between a breath and a yes.
I glanced at her. She’d already leaned forward, chin propped on her hand, eyes wide. Twenty minutes later, when I looked again, she hadn’t moved. She was gone. Fully sucked into the film and simply not available to us as a resource.
That was when I realized Annie had not come here for Hale. Hale was a bonus objective. Annie had come for the movie.
“He just leaned over and said something to her,” Tabby murmured.
“Mm,” I said.
“She laughed.”
“Okay.”
“Not a huge laugh. More of a—”
“Tabby,” Annie said, without turning her head. Her voice was pleasant but very firm. “There’s a movie happening.”
On screen, two people were in a shed. It looked important. I couldn’t tell you what they were saying because apparently not looking at Hale required my full concentration.
Tabby waited. The scene ended. She resumed.
“Okay, so she just touched his arm.”
“Great,” I said.
“Casual. But intentional. You know the difference.”
I did know the difference.
I said nothing.
“Her body language is very—”
“Tabby,” Annie said again.
Tabby subsided. Took a sip of her drink. Likely waiting for her next opening.
I stared at the screen and caught maybe forty-five seconds of what was probably a decent movie, judging by Annie’s rapt attention alone.
And then, because I was apparently committed to making things harder for myself, I finally looked.
Hale was watching the movie.
That was it. That was all he was doing, sitting two rows ahead in the low flicker of the screen with his hands loose on the armrests, face giving nothing away. The same thing everyone else in that building was doing.
The thing I couldn’t seem to do.
Then his date shifted and leaned in a little closer.
I turned back to the screen.
It wasn’t my business.
We’d hooked up. Twice. We had not discussed it, defined it, or turned it into anything with a label. I had no right to sit there counting the inches between him and a woman he had actually brought on a date.
I picked up my drink and drank too fast.
On screen, something happened that made Annie suck in a sharp breath.
Tabby stayed quiet for once.
That was worse.
The movie kept rolling.
I didn’t see any of it.
HALE
I walked Sarah out of the theater and into the lot, where her car sat under the flickering lamppost.
The movie had been good, and I’d had a good time watching it with her. She’d laughed in the right places and caught the symbolism in one scene before I did, nudging me like we were in on something together. Smart woman. Warm. Easy company.
And I’d known ten minutes in it wasn’t going anywhere.
Her hand had settled on my thigh during a slower moment, more question than demand, careful and light, and all I’d felt was the polite awareness that she was interested.
A month ago, I might’ve let that be enough. Tonight, I was planning my way out before the credits rolled.
We reached her car and she turned to me.
“I had fun,” she said.
“Me too.”
She studied my face. “I was going to suggest drinks, but this isn’t really working, is it?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
She laughed, short and clean. “Does it have anything to do with the three women who spent half the movie staring at us?”
I didn’t even blink.
I hadn’t needed to turn around to know who she meant. I’d clocked them five minutes in. The dramatic ducking. The hissed whispering. Shut up, he’ll hear you. It was a miracle the theater hadn’t thrown them out.
“Sorry about that.” I dragged a hand over the back of my neck. “They’re friends.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I thought about lying, but I sensed more curiosity than accusation.
“It’s complicated,” I said finally.
“Ah.” She nodded like that was the least surprising thing I’d said all evening. Maybe it was.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She shrugged. “Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
We lingered, and then she opened her door.
“If it ever gets uncomplicated,” she said, half-smiling, “call me.”
I huffed a quiet laugh. “I will.”
I stood there while she pulled out of the lot, taillights disappearing into the street.
I should’ve been annoyed at the world’s least covert surveillance unit, currently pretending to read movie posters by the entrance. And I was, a little. But I kept coming back to the same question.
Had it bothered her, seeing me there with someone else? Did she care?
Because if the situation had been reversed, if I’d walked into that theater and found Yasmine two rows up with some guy leaning in to make her laugh, I would’ve felt it to a degree that would’ve been straight up problematic.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and started toward the entrance.
They saw me coming, and suddenly became very interested in a poster for a Romanian slow cinema film no one in this county was going to see.
Tabby gasped theatrically. “Hale! Fancy seeing you here.”
“Y’all ain’t slick,” I said. “I want to be real clear about that. There’s a word for what y’all are doing tonight, and it’s nowhere damn close to slick.”
Tabby grinned like I’d just paid her a compliment. “We support the arts.”
Annie didn’t even attempt denial. “Field research.”
Yasmine was holding a flyer.
Upside down.
She still hadn’t looked at me.
“Ava?” I said, because of course.
“Yup. In Dallas with Grant,” Annie confirmed. “She’s concerned there’s something wrong with you.”
“Thought so.”
Yasmine was standing feet away with that upside-down flyer in her hand and her attention anywhere but on me.
I didn’t know what it meant yet, and this wasn’t the place to figure it out. She finally lifted her eyes, bit at her lip like she was bracing, but I wasn’t going to make her say a word. Not there with our friends watching us.
“Ricochet?” I said instead. Time to reset the board.
“Yes,” Tabby said immediately.
Annie nodded. “I’m starving.”
Yasmine hesitated half a breath. “Sure.”
“Ride together?”
Annie perked up, her eyes cutting across the half-empty lot to where I was parked. “In the Chevelle?”
I pulled the keys from my pocket.
“Fuck yeah,” she said.
She’d seen my father’s 1970 Chevelle SS in the shop once and started treating me like I was the keeper of a holy relic.
I handed her the keys. “You can drive.”
“You’re serious?” Annie asked.
“You so much as think the word burnout, I’m taking them back.”
“So drive it wrong. Got it.”
“Annie.”
“I heard you.” She clutched the keys to her chest. “I respect her.”
As we started toward the cars, I fell into step beside Yasmine.
Not touching.
Close enough to feel the heat.
I didn’t ask her why she’d been there. She didn’t ask me how the date went.
A few minutes later, Annie pulled out of the lot with both hands on the wheel, Tabby riding shotgun, Yasmine and me in the back seat.
The theater disappeared behind us. Ricochet was ten minutes away.
Yasmine’s knee was three inches from mine.
I knew because I counted.