ME: Sorry. I need to talk to you. Can you cover for me tomorrow and say I’m spending the night at your house if anyone asks?
CARMEN: What are you up to?
ME: Meet me at the diner tomorrow at noon. I’ll explain everything.
CARMEN: You’re being weird. What’s with all the secrecy? OMG is this about that guy?
ME: I’ll tell you tomorrow.
CARMEN: So now I’m supposed to lie awake all night wondering?
I giggle and text her back.
ME: You’ll live
CARMEN: I hate you.
ME: You love me.
A second later, she texts me a photo of her sticking her tongue out at me.
I smile and shove my phone under my pillow, then close my eyes and dream of Blue.
The next day, Carmen is sitting in her car in front of the diner when I pull up. We both climb out and meet on the sidewalk.
She hooks her arm in mine and drags me toward the door.
“Spill the beans already. I’m dying here.”
Once we’re seated at a booth by the window and the waitress takes our order and leaves us, I lean across the table. “Blue rented a house two blocks from the church.”
“So…?” She adds sugar to her cup of coffee, then slows and frowns. “Wait. Why would he do that?”
“So that we’d have a place to meet.”
Her eyes bug out of her head. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
“How do you know all this?”
“He was waiting outside when I came out the front doors of the church yesterday.”
“Did anyone see him?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone around that I knew.”
“You talked to him? Right there where anyone could see?”
“Just for a minute, and I was a nervous wreck the entire time, but he said he wanted to show me something, and we walked down the street.”
“You went off with him? Alone?”
“It was broad daylight, Carmen. It wasn’t like he was going to abduct me.”
“He’s a biker—albeit a gorgeous one—but a criminal just the same. You don’t know what he’s capable of doing.”
“He’s not like that, and you don’tknowhe’s a criminal,” I defend.
