She looked chaotically adorable like that, bottom lip snagged under her teeth, eyes staring into the mirror at mine, but also staring right through. She was clearly already thinking ten steps ahead.
“Then we’ll look into it,” I said, attempting to reel her in. “There are other things we can do before just showing up at the guy’s place of work.”
“We can be discreet,” she argued.
I let out a frustrated breath. “I’m absolutely not doing a stakeout.”
FIVE
Reid
“Remindme again how this isn’t a stakeout?”
“It’s a casual drive by,” Hazel said, pushing off her car and waving at me.
A few days ago, when she gave me her address at the salon and said she’d drive, I’d almost told her there was no way in hell I’d be tagging along. But then she’d looked at me, with those glassy, wide, helpless eyes, and I’d caved. This whole thing was so far outside my comfort zone it was ridiculous, but I’d said yes anyway.
It wasn’t that Icouldn’tsay no—though, sure, I usually didn’t—it was that I didn’twantto. We’d just met, and yet I felt compelled to help her. She seemed so defeated, like she didn’t have much left. I couldn’t stand the idea of being one more letdown.
“And what information are we going to glean?” I asked, approaching her ancient-looking sedan. Seriously, this thing could have been in a museum.
“I don’t know? A brazenly guilty expression? A stray orange cat hair on his black shirt? We’ll know it when we see it.” She gave me a small smile and handed me one of the coffees teetering inside the holder in her hands. “It’s a vanillalavender soy latte. Hopefully that’s okay. It was the special at the café down the street.”
I tried not to turn my nose up at the strange sounding drink. “Interesting,” I said, taking the cup from her.
Despite this being one of the strangest mornings of my life—meeting a girl I hardly knew, sipping a coffee I’d never usually try, about to drive to her old place of work to spy on her boss in search of clues for a kidnapped cat—I felt kind of…excited. Or maybe it was anxiety. I once read that the two felt almost identical, and I hadn’t been able to unlearn that since. That fluttery, flippy sensation deep in your gut? It showed up for both. The main difference was that anxiety usually only preluded the unknown.
“Your hair looks great, by the way,” Hazel said, opening her driver’s side door and waving for me to get in.
“Thanks. It’s grown on me.” Not even a lie, either. At first, I’d had to bite my tongue when I realized she hadn’t taken enough length off the top. I’d forced myself to be polite and leave, figuring I could always go back to Ruby to fix it at a time when Hazel wasn’t there. But after looking in the mirror for a day, I had to accept that Hazel had been right. The shapedidsuit my face better.
The passenger side door handle stuck when I tried to open it.
“You have to yank a little,” Hazel said, her voice muffled by the car window.
I pulled harder on the handle, but the door still didn’t budge.
“Okay, you have to yank a lot. Really put your shoulder into it.”
I braced one hand on the frame of the door and yanked—hard. It opened, almost whacking the glasses clean off my face. I jerked backward and shot her an accusatory glare.
“I’ve been meaning to get that fixed.” The way she said it made me feel like she had absolutely zero intention of getting that fixed.
I started to slide into the seat but froze.
Her car was a disaster. Not just slightly messy—a full-blown catastrophe. If I thought Ruby was cluttered, Hazel was on a whole different level. Clothes were scattered across nearly every seat, an open CD case lay on the floor, and random papers were strewn everywhere like a tiny tornado had blown through.
“Sorry, it’s a little messy.” Hazel piled up the sweatshirt and receipts from the passenger seat and dumped them into the back.
It was almost physically painful to get into her car. My entire being rejected clutter, and it seemed, from my very limited knowledge of her, that Hazel’s entire beingwasclutter.
“It’s fine.” I urged my voice not to go up an octave. As soon as I closed the door, the claustrophobia hit me right in the face. My fingers searched for the button to roll down the window.
“Oh, you have to roll it down, like actually roll it.” Hazel held out her hand and made a turning motion with her fist before pointing to the door.
“Got it,” I said, before urgently cranking the window down. She gave me a funny look, likely because it was only forty degrees outside, but I hoped she didn’t ask me to put it back up. My skin was blazing hot, as it typically was any time I found myself in an uncomfortable or new social situation, and the icy air was the only thing keeping me sane.
“Thanks again for coming with me,” she said, throwing the car into reverse. It made a loud creaking noise as she peeled out of the parking spot.
