“I’m what?” he challenges.
“You won’t leave me alone.”
“It’s not that I won’t. It’s that I can’t,” he says. “I’m taking you to work.”
He drops my elbow, but instead of fleeing, I remain in place and wait to see what he does next. He moves closer, and I smell him. It’s not cologne, but he smells good. He smells so good, I want to bury my face in his chest and stay there for the rest of the day.
“And then I will pick you up tonight.”
I shake my head at him. I can’t give him what he’s asking for. That would disrupt my life too much. My parents would never accept him, and there’s a slim chance they might ask me to move out. Everyone in town will talk about me. My sister will make my life hell. And for what? For a fling with a bad boy? I’ve never sought that out. Gavin was a computer nerd who wore glasses and color coordinated his Converse with his Hawaiian shirts.
Look where that got you. Broke, abandoned, and in debt.
“No,” I say simply.
“No doesn’t work for me.”
“I can’t—”
He puts his index finger tomy lips. “Shh,” he whispers.
“Lexi,” I mumble with his finger still pressed to my lips. “I will not get involved with someone who was with Lexi. If she’s your type, you can’t possibly be interested in me. She—”
“Meant nothing. She’s gone.”
“But you’re—”
“I’m here with you.”
Chapter 22
Rip
“This is way beneath my pay grade,” Preacher says a few hours later.
I don’t react. I wait for him to tell me what he learned. He’s a computer whiz. He can hack, access the dark web, and find anything you need to know. He won’t get his hands dirty, but he’ll work behind the scenes.
He rolls up his sleeves. Unlike me, he only has a single tattoo on his right arm—a cross.
“Okay,” he says with a huff. “She’s clean. No record.” That’s the least surprising news I’ve ever heard, not that it would matter. “She’s broke, though. Not only that, but she’s in debt. Outside of her student loans, which aren’t that much, she took out a high-interest loan. There are no cars registered in her name. Her credit score sucks, and she has seven hundred dollars and three cents in her bank account.”
I want to know why she’s so broke. It sounds like she’s had bad luck, but that’s something Preacher can’t tell me. At least not today.
“Find out why she moved back here,” I order.
He nods, but doesn’t ask any questions, just like I knew he would. He never asks questions. He does his job and minds his business. I’ve known him for as long as I’ve been working for Dax, and the only thing I know about his personal life is that he dropped out of seminary school. Despite the giant diamond-encrusted cross he wears on a chain, he’s about the least religious person I’ve ever met.
“I’ll get back to you,” he says.
“I need access to her bank accounts.”
He nods, and I hand him my phone. Again, no questions asked.
There’s a group of people in scrubs talking when I drive my SUV in front of the building where she works; all but one man dressed in a cheap suit. I wouldn’t pay him any mind except that he’s talking to Eden.
He’s standing too close, and his hand is pressed to the building, basically boxing her in. From where I’m sitting, I see her smile and put a piece of hair behind her ear like she’s flirting with this asshole. She looks over, and I know she sees my car, but she ignores me and gazes into the face of this man.
A few of her co-workers wave and walk to the back of the building, likely in search of their cars, but Eden continues to smile in this idiot’s face.
