I click on the screen, enlarging the live image feed and keeping my eyes on the doors. We’ve been sitting here for three hours now, watching and waiting for any suspicious activity. We’re not really sure what or who we’re watching for, but the art gallery has been put on high alert as they’re having the “âme perdue” moved here from New York. Which means that we’re here “unofficially” trying to catch something before it actually happens.
Luke is next to me, his back ramrod straight as he watches the feed with me. It’s not often that Luke and I get to work with each other, at least, not on our own anyway. But since Dean has arrived, Luke and Kitty haven’t been going on as many jobs as they normally would. I can’t work out if Luke is jealous of Dean or whether he still feels guilty having not known Kitty was addicted and going through a really hard time.
He’s not exactly the kind of guy who you can talk to about feelings and shit, but I decide to give it a go, what could it hurt?
“So…” I bite my lip and keep my eyes on the screen, watching as a man dressed in a pair of jeans and dark-blue shirt walks into the big art building, looking over his shoulder as he goes. I mentally mark that as the first sign that something is going on. “What do you think of Dean?” I ask, writing down a description of the man and the time he’s entered the building.
Luke makes a noise in the back of his throat, not really decipherable.
“He’s pretty cool,” I comment.
“Don’t know him, still don’t trust him,” Luke answers, his tone gruff.
I flit my eyes from the screen back to him and try to see what he means but his face gives nothing away, even his eyes are guarded.
“You know it wasn’t your fault,” I say, leaning back in the seat and flicking the lid of my pen on and off with the pad of my thumb.
He raises a brow and turns toward me, his knees nearly touching mine in the back of the small van that I’ve kitted out. Every wall contains some kind of electrical device: the screen between the back and the two front seats is bulletproof, as well as the extra insulation I added to the inside. The last thing we need is to be shot at and not be protected.
When I think about the cost of all of the equipment in this one vehicle, it makes me cringe that we’re out in the open. Not that anyone could tell from the outside that it was anything but a normal van.
We have it spray-painted once a month so that people can’t track it. Always be one step ahead, that’s my motto. Even though we do our best to go incognito, you never know if someone is watching you, waiting to strike.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Luke finally grunts, his eyes flashing in warning before he turns back around toward the screen.
“Yeah you do,” I say, twisting back toward the screen as well. “But it’s okay, I get it. You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Jesus, Evan. I’m not a fucking woman, I don’t want to sit and talk about my feelings.” He runs his hands through his blond hair and down his face. “Just leave it alone.”
“Gotcha.” I smirk at him and hold my hand out, ready to do my secret handshake. The handshake that means I’ve got your back.
Luke looks down at my hand and shakes his head emphatically. “I’m not doing it.”
I don’t say a word, I wiggle my fingers at him instead, taunting him. He knows that once I put my hand out for the handshake that there’s no way I’m going to move it until he’s done it.
He narrows his eyes at me, huffing out a breath angrily. “Fuck’s sake.” He places his hand in mine and I shake it like a normal handshake and then pull it back, curling the tips of my fingers around his before letting go and bumping his fist with mine. I then hold my hand up for a high five, slapping palms and then wiggling my fingers down while making a noise that sounds like “Wooooowwweeee.”
I can see the smile kick up the corners of his lips. Whether he likes to admit it or not, he loves the secret handshake.
“I got your back, man.”
“Yeah, okay.” He laughs but I can hear the distressed tone to it. Something is bothering him and I’m the kind of person who likes to help everyone else out. I’d much rather help people with their own problems than tackle any that are happening in my own life.
I’m the complete opposite with myself as opposed to my friends and family. I’d back them up the whole way, fight next to them, and stand up loud and proud to support them. Whereas when it comes to myself, I tend to push my head in the sand and pretend everything is rosy—even when it isn’t.
Thinking about myself only leads to thinking about Geena, but as soon as she flashes in my mind, it’s replaced with the hauntingly beautiful eyes that I met a couple of days ago. I startle, my seat moving back a few inches at the image of Lexi. Luke flicks his gaze to me questioningly before he turns back to face the screen.
Jesus, where the hell did that come from? I don’t want to be thinking of the ex-con that I have to work with. Several times I’ve thought about running a check on her, but every time my fingers go to tap on those keys, something holds me back.
I’ve never, not once, had second thoughts when running a background check, but for some reason, I don’t want to find out what she did. I don’t want to think about what that means.
I shake my head, trying to push her out and focusing back on the screens.
“Oh, shit!” I click on the screen as the same man comes back out of the gallery, only this time he’s dressed in a suit as if he’s off to a business meeting. If it wasn’t for his hair that I spotted, I’d have never known it was the same dude.
“What?” Luke asks.
“See him? He went inside like fifteen minutes ago dressed in jeans and a shirt, and now he’s coming out dressed like that!”
Luke comes closer, narrowing his eyes as he watches the man jog down the steps, buttoning up his navy suit jacket. “Holy shit. It is.”
I try to zoom in more, frustrated that I can’t get a good image of his face but have no luck. Luke stands up and makes his way through the bulletproof screen toward the front of the van. Neither of us say a word, we both know that we need to follow him: to find out who he is and what he’s up to. Nobody goes into a gallery in one set of clothes and comes out dressed completely differently. There’s definitely something going on.
I stand and watch the feed, twisting it to see where he goes as Luke starts the engine.
“He’s getting into a black SUV,” I tell Luke. “There’s someone in the driver’s seat—what the fuck!”
“What?”
“They just pulled out into oncoming traffic, they’ll be passing us any second!”
“On it,” Luke gruffly replies, staring out of the side mirror, watching them speed past us and then allowing a couple of cars to go past before pulling out.
I hold onto the side of the van as he goes speeding after them, all the while maintaining a good distance as to not raise suspicion.
“Turn the front cameras on record,” Luke says to me.
I sit back down and tap away at my laptop, bringing the cameras up and then pressing record to capture it all.
I wince when they run a red light and cross my fingers that we won’t lose them; as soon as we start to slow down, the light turns green and Luke speeds across the intersection, taking a sharp left and heading down toward the industrial estate that sits on the outskirts of the city.
We’re only about twenty miles away from the town where we all live and where the MAC Security compound is, but it’s a stark difference to the small town where everyone knows everybody.
“They’re heading into the estate,” Luke barks out.
“Slow down, let’s see if we can see what unit they go into.”
No sooner have I said it does Luke slow down, almost coming to a stop. “Give them five; there’s only one gate in and out of here. There’s no way they can get out without us seeing them.”
I nod, even though he can’t see me, all the while I replay all of the video footage that I’ve caught so far, trying to get a visual on the person who was driving but all I get is their outline because of the blacked-out windows.
“He didn’t get out of the SUV when he first arrived,” I tell Luke. “He was walking down the sidewalk and the SUV was already out front.”
“Hmmm, looks like a run-through to me.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” I say, getting a still picture of the man who went into the gallery and saving it, ready to run through my extended system as soon as we get back to the compound. Although I don’t know how much luck I’ll have because I can barely make out any of his features.
The police have a system where you can run a picture for facial recognition, the problem with that system is that you have to have been arrested to get a hit. My system runs differently. It has everything that the police system has but I also have all of the people who haven’t been arrested.
In the business that we’re in, nine times out of ten, these people are career criminals, having never been caught. Without my adapted system, we wouldn’t know who half of these people were that we have to put away.
And this is just one of the many differences between us and the police or other agencies. We don’t answer to anybody, we run these ops how we want to, using the equipment that we need and not having to rely on systems that only house about twenty percent of the information that we need.
It’s no surprise why MAC Security has become a well-known name within the authorities; not just in a good way, but also a bad way. Some people don’t like the fact that we can come in and solve a case within a week or two that has taken an agency six months of exhausting all of their resources and they still haven’t got anywhere.
Jealousy. Plain and simple. They wish they had the resources that we did.
“I’m going in,” Luke announces, coming up to the speed limit.
I keep a keen eye on all the cameras, having all of the twelve cameras that surround the van on and recording. Not a blind spot in sight.
We drive through all of the units trying to find the SUV but we come up empty.
“I’m gonna do another drive around.”
“No.” I lift up and pop my head through the little hatch. “Don’t, they could be watching. Just drive us out and we can get back to the compound. I’ll find out who he is and we can go from there.”
“Good plan,” Luke says, turning slightly toward me as we drive back out through the gates to the estate.
“Batman.” I chuckle at my joke before ducking into the back again, saving all of the footage to a USB and wiping it off the system.
* * *
“What did you get?” Ty asks as we both walk into the office at the warehouse. It took us a good hour to get out of the city as we got caught in traffic. When we finally got back to the compound, it was almost six and I knew that I probably had another hour of work to do on the computer to pull a profile of this guy together.
“You go do your thing, Evan. I’ll fill him in,” Luke tells me.
“Awesome.” I spin around, leaving the door open as there’s only me, Luke, and Ty left in the warehouse now.
I head over the mats and to my computer, moving the mouse pad to bring the eight screens to life before I sit down and interlock my fingers together, stretching them out in front of me and cracking a few knuckles in the process.
My fingers fly over the keyboard before I push the USB into one of the fifteen ports that I have before I download all of the videos onto the hard drive. Clicking the picture I saved of the guy, I drop it into my system before pushing it to the second screen and working on the image quality of the videos, also scanning for anyone else who was around at the time, trying to see if any of them were watching him or even the SUV.
A ping on my screen brings up the guy’s name and I click on it to enlarge it, scanning it and reading all about him before printing off the standard profile that my system has generated. Although it’s not really necessary because we all know who he is.
I grab a light-brown folder and turn to the printer after pressing print and then stand up before grabbing the sheets once the printer has spat them out. I head back to the office where Luke and Ty are still talking.
“That was fast,” Ty comments as I walk in, his brows raised.
“It’s just my normal search,” I tell him. “I’ll do a more in-depth one and have it ready for the meeting in the morning.”
He nods in reply as he takes the folder off me before I sit down next to Luke on the sofa, waiting for Ty to put it together. He lifts his eyes, showing me that he recognizes who it is. “Damn.”
“I know.” I grin, crossing my ankles and leaning back. “We’ll catch him this time.” My whole body buzzes with anticipation.
“Who is it?” Luke asks, looking from me to Ty.
“Darrell Le’Fraine.”
Luke’s eyes widen and he sits up, leaning his arms on his thighs as he turns his head between us. “The Darrell Le’Fraine? Darrell, the con artist, Darrell? The only case that has gotten away from us?”
“Yep,” I answer, popping the p.
“Evan, get as much info as you can, I want a full extended profile on this fucker.” Ty pushes up from the desk he’s leaning on. “Luke, I want you to find all of the old information we have on him.”
We both stand up to get working but Ty holds his hand up, stopping us.
“Not now though, you’ve both been on this job for twelve hours straight. Go home, get something to eat and a good night’s sleep. We’ll all get on this case tomorrow with fresh heads.”
We all stay silent for a second, looking at each other and knowing that this could be it, the final chance to get Darrell Le’Fraine and put him away for good. Ty’s the first one to turn around and leave, Luke following a few seconds after him, but I don’t.
I head right back to my computer and start searching for more information on Darrell; not that we don’t know most things about him anyway.
He’s one of the most famous infamous con artists in the world. His skills are out of this world and I know for a fact that most of his jobs people don’t even know about. There are galleries all over the world that have replicas hanging on their walls while thinking that they’re originals thanks to him. That’s how good he is: it’s his specialty.
After printing off about a hundred pages of information not only on him but the gallery too, I know exactly what he’s going to do. He’ll be taking the original painting that is being transferred to the gallery from New York.
The only question now is… when will he hit it?
Once I’ve gathered the papers and also saved all of the information on several different USBs, I head out of the warehouse, turning the lights off and locking up as I do.
I read some of the information in the folder on the short walk to my cabin, trying to work out where he’s been for the last four years.
He’s been under the radar ever since we nearly caught him. It’s the closest that anyone has ever got to him, but not close enough for my liking. We should have caught him, and this time we will, we have more people and even better equipment now; but then so will he.
I can’t help but wonder why he was at the gallery today. Why would he show his face? That’s not his usual style; he’s more of a stay in the background kind of guy.
“Hey.” I jump a few feet in the air as I open my cabin door, not expecting anyone to be in here.
“Geena,” I gasp, turning my shocked face into a forced smile. “I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“Can’t a girlfriend surprise her boyfriend?” she asks, standing up and holding a white bag in the air. “I got takeout.”
My stomach growls hungrily as the smell of the food wraps around me. I close the door behind me, dropping the folder down next to my computer and moving toward her.
“I’m starving,” I say, wrapping my arms around her waist and bringing her closer. “And I love that you surprised me.”
I try to keep my voice neutral, not giving anything away. What I really want to say is that she shouldn’t have been in here on her own. Even though I keep most of my stuff down in the safe room that she doesn’t know about, there’s still things hanging around that she could see.
I know I should trust her, but the fact of the matter is… I don’t. I don’t tell her about the jobs I’m working on, or the equipment that I’m making. I made the mistake at the start of our relationship, trying to tell her what I was making and I was met with, “I don’t give a crap what you make.” Since then, I told myself that I’d keep my work life and her separate.
I know what you’re thinking, that I shouldn’t have to do that. But for a quiet life, I will. At least, that’s how I used to think, but lately she’s been snapping at me more and turning up out of the blue, something that I don’t like. I have my routine down to a T, and when she turns up, it ruins it all because I have no choice but to drop what I was doing and give her all of my attention.
“Good,” she giggles, pushing her auburn hair out of her face as she looks up at me with a smile. “I wouldn’t have been happy if you weren’t happy.” She giggles again only this time, it’s high-pitched and almost has a frantic quality about it, which makes me wince as she spins around and sits back down on the sofa, pulling the takeout boxes out the bag.
“How was work?” she asks.
“It was good—”
“My day was hectic!” she cuts me off, blowing out a breath, opening the boxes one by one and then picking one up and putting a forkful of food in her mouth. “Charlie must have been on a roll because he arrested three people, all of which I had to book in. Then that homeless guy that always hangs around on the corner was looking for shelter again.” She shakes her head, a disgusted look on her face. “I kicked him out as soon as he came inside.”
I zone out as she continues to talk, my mind on everything else but what’s in the room. I should probably try and talk but I know that every time I do, she’ll only cut me off anyway. It’s best to let her say what she wants to say.
I sit down, picking up a box and holding it on my thigh as I lean back, closing my eyes.
“Would you like me to stay over?”
My head snaps to her as my eyes fling wide open. She’s finished her food and I’m now holding a box of cold food, my appetite gone.
“What?”
“I mean if you don’t want me to, then I can go home.” Her voice is razor sharp and my brain finally catches up with what she’s saying.
“I… Yeah, you can stay. I’ve gotta be in the warehouse at six though and I’m ready to crash now. It’s been a long day.”
She shrugs her shoulders, a coy smile on her face.
“I wouldn’t mind going to bed early.”
My cheeks heat as she watches me and trails her hand down my thigh. “No.” I clear my throat, cursing at myself for sounding so harsh. “I’ve been on a job since six this morning. I need a good night’s sleep.” I try to placate her.
Her hand moves so fast that you’d think I’d just burned her. “You don’t want me anymore do you? Huh?”
“I—”
“Fuck!” She stands up and plants her hands in her hips. “All you’re ever interested in is the guys at the stupid fucking warehouse and your computers. What do you have on them, huh? Porn? Is that what you’re doing? Watching porn all day?”
I huff out a breath. I wish I had a spare half an hour to watch fucking porn, at least then I may get some goddamn relief.
She spins around on her heels, heading for my computer and I know that this is going to end one of two ways. She’s either going to storm out and not talk to me for several days or I’m going to have to give in to her.
I place the cold box of food down on the small table in front of me and stand up, taking the four steps to get to her before wrapping my arms around her from behind and kissing her neck.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go to bed early.”
“You don’t want me,” she whines.
I don’t answer her, instead I continue planting soft kisses down her neck.
Stick your head in the sand again, Evan. That’ll make things better.
* * *
“How are you settling in?” Jake asks, his eyes boring into mine from behind his pine wooden desk.
I shift in the blue plastic chair, my eyes scanning his office. They land on the window on the left beige wall that looks out into the waiting room. There’s several people waiting to have the same meeting with him that I’m having right now.
I’ve been out of prison for two weeks now, and I still wake up every morning expecting to hear the shouts from other women in the block: to feel the cold seeping into my bones from underneath the thin blankets. Instead, I’m greeted with the gentle footsteps of Livvy walking around the house and warmth.
I shake the thoughts from my head, focusing back on Jake.
“Really good, the job’s going well and Livvy is great.” I smile, a genuine one that I haven’t had on my face for years.
“Good.” He pushes his chair back, picking up a small plastic cup off the desk. “Protocol,” he says as he hands it to me.
“Huh?” I take it from him, staring at it with confusion written all over my face. Why is he handing me a cup?
“Drug test.” He shifts uncomfortably. “I know you weren’t in on a drug charge, but if you take any kind of substance, it’s a breach of your parole.”
“Ah, okay.” I stand up. “Do I do it now?”
He walks past me, opening up the door to his office and waving me to follow him. We walk past several doors before he comes to a stop in front of a dark-blue one, opening it up. “I’ll stand here and wait.”
I’m about to tell him that he doesn’t need to do that when I realize this must be part of the process. It’s not like I’m a stranger to people hearing me pee. You get used to having no privacy when you’re sharing a shower block with many other women or being strip-searched at random.
I do my business, washing my hands after and opening up the door.
“You can leave it there.” He tilts his head so I place it back on the sink. He steps inside, putting on a pair of gloves and taking a strip out of a small canister on the counter, dipping it in and then throwing it away. “All clear.”
Like I knew it would be.
We head back into his office, me taking a seat as he writes something down on a pad in front of him.
“I want to see you in four weeks, book an appointment with the front desk,” he tells me, not looking up. “We’ll see where you are then: Livvy will have reported back to me too and then we can assess when I’ll need to see you next.”
I nod my head, clearing my throat. “So, I can go now?”
He lifts his head, staring at me for a beat before he slowly nods. “Yeah.”
“Awesome.” I stand up, stepping toward the door that he left open. “I’ll see you in four weeks.”
He doesn’t answer, so I make my way back out to the waiting room, booking an appointment as my eyes wander over the people waiting to be seen.
One man covered in tattoos with a menacing sneer on his face locks eyes with me. I try to smile at him, but when he pulls his lips back, baring his teeth and growling, I squeak.
Darting my eyes around, I let them land on the plump woman behind the desk as she hands over a card with my appointment time and date on it.
I take it from her, saying thanks and then rushing out of there and over to the bus stop down the street.
The ride here took nearly an hour, a lot longer than it took when Jake drove me the day I was released. It took the scenic route, not that I mind. I soak up every little thing that I see on the way back to town, much like I did on the way here.
The trees lining the roads, the children playing, the fluffy clouds that sit in the sky. There’s so many colors surrounding me as well as the sound of the bus’s engine that rattles the seats.
I lean back, staring down at my hands in my lap as the bus comes to a stop, signaling for me to get off.
Standing up, I walk down the aisle, waving to the driver before jumping off the bus and heading past the shops of the small town. My eyes are on the shop windows that are displaying what you can buy inside when my gaze lands on a pair of boots. I halt, watching them in awe before walking toward the shop in a daze.
My hand lands on the glass as I stare at them, my breath fogging up the window. The black leather looks so soft and the buckles on the side are engraved with some kind of pattern. My eyes are full of hearts and I want nothing more than to buy them right now.
My hand hovers over the pocket in my jean shorts and I’m in the shop, trying them on and buying them before I can form a coherent thought.
I stare down at the bag and sigh as I walk out of the shop, turning right and hitting a hard wall.
“Shit, sorry,” I murmur, looking up at the wall that I walked into as something grips onto my biceps.
A slow smile spreads across his face, his honey eyes lighting up as his hands grip harder to steady me.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Evan says, letting go of my arms slowly, the pads of his fingers running down my forearms before he drops them by his sides.
“Hi.” I stare at him for several seconds, neither of us moving. “I just bought new boots.” I smile big and wide, bringing the bag up between us, causing him to dodge out of the way because I nearly smack him with it.
“Yeah?” he asks, looking down at the bag and then back up to my face.
“Mmmhmm.” I tilt my head to the side. “I just got off the bus from my parole meeting and heard something.” I bring the bag to my chest, hugging the box. “These boots were shouting my name, calling me and begging me to take them home.” I shrug. “I couldn’t say no, so I bought them.”
He grins down at me and I smile wide, showing him my teeth. We stand there, neither of us moving as we stare at each other. My feet are stuck to the ground and my eyes can’t move from his, being held captive.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he suddenly says, his grin dropping from his face, a serious look masking his eyes.
I know he’s referring to Monday when I hid from him at the community center, too embarrassed after our first meeting. I made a fool of myself, and I have no idea why. I’ve always been one to talk randomly, but he makes me nervous: more nervous that I’ve ever been.
I take a step back, my eyes finally able to drop from his as I look down at a crack in the sidewalk.
“I didn’t think you’d want to be associated with me.” I lift my eyes up to his. “You know, because of me just coming out of pri—”
“No.” His voice is deep and gruff and shocks the hell out of me. He shakes his head, pulling up his lips into a grin again, only this one looks forced and not the natural one he had only a few minutes ago. “I mean… you don’t have to avoid me.” His eyes search mine before wandering off over my head, lighting up at what he sees. “Come on.”
He takes my elbow in his hand, spinning me around and dragging me along with him. His strides are long and I practically have to run to keep up with him.
“What are you doing?” I gasp when he comes to a stop causing me to nearly collide with his back.
“We’re having milk and pie,” he states, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I stare at him wide-eyed, wondering if he’s lost his mind. I’ve met him once and I was the most awkward person to ever exist and now he’s pulling me into a diner.
“Evan…”
He ignores me, winking at the waitress while he keeps his hand on my elbow, coming to a stop at one of the booths and tilting his head at the seat. “Sit, I’ll order pie.”
He turns around, heading to the counter while I stand stock still, watching him before my eyes take in the diner.
It’s small, only a few booths lining the wall of windows that look out onto the main road, along with a few tables scattered in between them and the counter. The counter has black leather stools that sit on silver colored poles, people digging into food and drinking coffee.
I swallow, hating that I’m in a new place. Livvy has been with me each time I come to town, and I feel safe with her, not that I don’t feel safe with Evan. It’s just… I don’t know him, and he makes me feel out of control of my own emotions.
My gaze swings from the booth to the door we walked in, wondering if I can run out of here and him not notice. My flight instincts are kicking in but my feet won’t move.
“Don’t look so scared,” he whispers in my ear. My gaze snaps up to his, seeing the sincerity in his eyes; I know he won’t hurt me but I can’t help the way I want to escape.
“I-I—”
“Sit down, eat some pie.” He shrugs.
I bite on my bottom lip, closing my eyes before scooting into the booth and placing my new boots next to me. “Okay.” I take a deep breath, willing myself to act normal and not make a fool out of myself again.
He sits opposite me, his eyes not moving from mine as he cocks his head to the side, watching me and waiting. I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but when two plates with pie and two glasses of milk are set in front of us, he finally looks away.
Picking up the fork with shaking hands, I break off a little pie and bring it to my mouth, moaning at the apple and blackberry fruits that are encased in sweet pastry.
“Good, huh?”
He’s already demolished half of his pie and is picking up his milk. His eyes close as he swallows and I can’t help but wonder if there’s something magical about the milk, so I pick mine up and take a small sip.
Wow. So milk and pie go together like peanut butter and jelly. You learn something new every day.
“So, Lexi… tell me about yourself.”
I swallow, the glass of milk suspended in midair. “I… erm... What?”
He chuckles, finishing the last of his pie. “This isn’t an interrogation, I just want to know more about you. I mean, we are going to be working at the community center together.”
I narrow my eyes, placing the glass down and looking down at the pie. “There’s not much to know.” I shrug. “You know I just got out of…” I look around, lowering my voice. “Prison.”
He lays his hands down flat on the table and I can’t help but stare at his long fingers, the way they drum softly on the white plastic that is covering the surface.
“There’s more to you than that, Lexi.”
I shake my head. “There really isn’t.”
“Hmmm.” I look back up at him, seeing something in his eyes that I can’t work out. “What about the tats?”
I look down at the ink on my arms, not really wanting to talk about me. “They’re nothing.”
“See.” He leans closer. “I don’t think that’s true.”
I bite my lip again as his scent washes over me, breathing in lungsful of air. “I got them while I was inside.” I pause, wondering how much I should say. “People think that when you’re inside that you can’t get a hold of anything, when it’s actually the opposite. There’s so much offered to you inside those walls. Drugs, tattoos, gangs, weapons. It’s the same as outside, only you’re trapped with it all in one place and not able to escape.”
I bring my gaze back up to his, waiting for him to say something but when he doesn’t, I continue, “The first one I got was this.” My fingers skim over the flower on my arm. “My gran… she loved flowers, it made me think of her.”
My throat closes up as I think of Gran and the flowers she tended to every day no matter how much pain she was in. They were her pride and joy.
“Do you still see her? Your gran?”
“No.” I shake my head, tears starting to form in my eyes and making him blurry. “She died while I was… inside.”
The air crackles with tension as we’re both silent. I feel exposed, like he can see everything with only one look in my eyes. I don’t like the feeling of not being able to hide from someone. I became good at making myself invisible, but right now I feel like I’m naked.
I dip my gaze from his, needing a reprieve. I can’t stop the snort that breaks free as my eyes land on the writing that’s on his t-shirt. “Home is where the Wi-Fi is.”
“Nice shirt.” I smirk, bringing my gaze back up to his.
His eyes widen, his body deflating and leaning against the back of the booth as he stares at me like I have three heads. “Really? You like it?”
I frown, tilting my head to the side. “Yeah, it’s funny.”
“Huh.” He stares at me for another beat before he shakes his head. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” I look up at the time on the clock on the wall and push the rest of my pie away, grabbing my bag. “I have to get back, I have work in a couple of hours.”
Standing up, I hesitate, not knowing what to do or say. He reaches for the pie, pointing at it with his fork.
“You can have my pie.” My eyes widen so much I’m sure they’re going to pop out of my head as my cheeks heat. “I meant… I… I… ugh!” I throw my hands up in the air, the bag hitting me in the shoulder.
He laughs so loud that everyone turns to stare at us, making a blush spread over my chest. I take two steps away from him before he says, “See you on Friday, Lexi.”
I throw my hand up over my shoulder, practically running out of the door and down the street, heading home.