He took it in stride. “Maybe we can solve one together.”
That sounded a little too much like a date, but I didn’t shut him down. “Tell me about croquet. Are we really going to play it?”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “Though I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about being caught.”
“We won’t be. In case you haven’t noticed, at night, all the security personnel monitor the bars. They’re not worried about the croquet lawn.”
I planted my tongue firmly in my cheek, glanced around one more time, then smiled. “Okay, let’s do it. I don’t know how to play, though. You’re going to have to teach me.”
“It’s pretty simple. I’ll be glad to serve as your instructor.”
This time, he was the one who’d said something that could be construed as sexy. His cheeks darkened under the limited light. I didn’t comment.
“Let’s do it,” I said. What could the rent-a-cops do if they caught us? At most, they could chase us from the lawn. I wasn’t worried. “I want to hit something with one of those mallets so bad.”
“See? I knew you were going to be on board with this.” He gave a smile that warmed me all over.
“Of course I’m on board with this. It’s freaking croquet. This place is beyond weird.”
“And yet you fit in,” he mused.
“So do you.”
“I never thought I did. Until now.”
I filed that away to think on later. “Come on. Let’s get the balls and mallets. I’m ready to do this.”
“Your wish is my command.”
14
FOURTEEN
Icouldn’t remember having so much fun with somebody. Bree had no idea what she was doing—I wasn’t even certain she had a frame of reference for croquet other than the movieHeathers—but she turned it into a competition.
We played two rounds. I won the first, and when it became apparent she wouldn’t quit unless she won the second, I purposely played poorly. She was competitive to the point of being distracting. I was competitive, too, but had nothing on her. Fortunately, she didn’t realize I’d deliberately flubbed my final few shots, because if she had, she wouldn’t have accepted the win.
It was almost midnight when she dropped me off at my house. My father’s vehicle was gone. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
“Do you think they’re still together?” she asked.
“I have no idea.” I pulled out my phone. I hadn’t checked for messages when we’d been playing, because it had seemed like a waste of time. I had one voicemail from my father, surprisingly enough, and it relaxed me a bit. “He had someone pick him uphere,” I told Bree when I was finished listening. “One of the men from his company. They drove his car back to his house.”
Bree looked as relieved as I felt. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
“Yes, well…” She rubbed her lips together, and something inside me made a sizzling noise, like bacon being thrown on the griddle.
That was weird.
“I had fun,” she said.
“I did too.” Admitting that was harder than it should have been, because it stirred up a feeling of vulnerability. “I had no idea you knew so much about the movieHeathers.”
She snorted. “It was one of my mother’s favorite movies when she was a teenager, I guess. She watched it on a loop when I was growing up, along withPump Up the Volume, Gleaming the Cube,andRobin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”
