I looked up and raised an eyebrow at Reid. “You wrote this?”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t judge me. I’ve had practice.”
That made me laugh as I continued to scan through the messages. Just a short, flirty convo. Nothing of substance, but also no damning evidence against him. The last text was a picture of the girl cuddled up with a cat to which he just said “Cutie” in response.
“He didn’t take the bait,” I said with a frown.
“Yet,” Reid added. “Let’s give it a couple days.”
“Would this be a bad time to point out that I know his address?” I handed his phone back and Reid tipped his head back and groaned.
“No more stakeouts, Hazel.”
I held up my hands. “Not a stakeout. Just a quick peep through a window, you know, see if we see anything.”
“And get caught trespassing.”
I shrugged. “It’s an apartment building in a busy area. We could just be walking by. Plus we follow him on socials now.” I pointed to his phone. “That man cannot go to the gym without telling the world about it, trust me. We could sneak over the next time we know he’s gone and just have a quick snoop.”
Reid chewed his lip as if considering it.
“Maybe,” he finally relented. “But only as a last resort.”
“Yes!” I pumped the fist not holding my coffee. Some splashed onto the floor anyway, and I swiped my sock-covered foot over it to clean it up. When I met Reid’s eyes again, his chin had dipped as he looked at me over the frames of his glasses, the judgement clear in his gaze.
“What? Like I’m going to break out a mop for a spill that tiny?”
He said nothing in return, but I could see the disapproval written all over his face. I didn’t mind, though. There was something about the non-subtle way that he judged me that made me feel weirdly not judged at all. Accepted, almost.
We squeezed around the small table tucked against the kitchen wall, cradling our coffee cups as we tossed around more ideas, trying to piece together a plan for what to do next.
Reid was very against anything that involved illegal trespassing.Boring. I couldn’t say that I agreed, but I had to admit it hadn’t gone well for us the first time.
He was hung up on finding more suspects, but I had tried to explain to him that my world wasn’t all that big. Sure, I overshared on social media, but I really didn’t think I had droves of people willing to track me down, steal my cat, and go through with this elaborate blackmailing scheme.
“Shit! It’s almost eight,” I said, when I caught a glimpse of the stove. You could barely read the numbers because the light on the clock was so dim. “I’ve got to go. My first client is in thirty minutes.”
He balked at me. “Thirty minutes? You should already be there.”
I rolled my eyes. “But then I’d miss out on my morning with you.”
Reid bit back a smile. “I have to get home and log into work.”
“What do you do, again?” I asked as he started collecting his stuff and I made my way back to the bedroom.
“IT for a bank,” he said.
I laughed, as I partially closed my bedroom door so I could take off my pajamas and throw on an all-black outfit. “You couldn’t make that sound drier if you tried,” I called out.
“It’s remote, pays well, and is incredibly flexible. Plus, I like it. It’s basically just solving tech issues all day.”
I ran a brush through my hair and put on exactly one coat of mascara before returning to the living room.
“Sounds like the perfect job for you,” I said.
He shrugged. “It kind of is.”
He already had his duffel shrugged onto his shoulder.
