Lola lifts her brows at me, slow and incredulous. “Hear them out? Why are we even hearing them out? Since when do we need the Calloways for anything? We do just fine on our own.”
“Because,” I say, pushing my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose. “Gage told me they want to pitch a collaboration.”
Beckett leans forward between the seats. “Did he tell you why? Or what this even is?”
I shake my head. Suspicion sits low and heavy in my stomach like a stone. “I don’t know. But we’ll find out soon.”
Beckett clicks his tongue. “I’m just saying, it seems a little coincidental that the Calloways suddenly want to get cozy. You haven’t said a damn thing about them in years. What’s going on?”
Lola cuts in before I can answer. “What’s going on is that we’re walking into an ambush over the yacht job.” She levels a look at me. “And I feel like I’ve had this exact conversation with you more than once lately.”
“Yeah, and yet here I am—alive and well.” A smirk lifts up the side of my mouth.
Beckett stiffens. “Alive and well? What the hell does that mean?”
“Nothing,” I say lightly. “It was a joke.”
It wasn’t. Not really.
My sister’s worry isn’t misplaced exactly, but I can’t let her see mine.
My brother is a Hale through and through, which means he too isn’t so easily deterred. “So he didn’t tell you why, or what this is about?”
“No.” I keep my tone neutral. “But I did run into him while we were scouting Highlight Entertainment.”
Lola gives a vicious little snort. “Ran into him? Bells, I found you inside his car two seconds away from climbing that man like a damn tree. If I hadn’t knocked on that window?—”
“It wasn’t like that,” I cut in quickly.
“Oh no?” She swivels toward me, lips twitching. “Then what would you call the soft-porn eye contact I witnessed?”
“I would call it you being dramatic.” My face heats anyway. Traitorous cheeks.
Beckett groans. “Jesus Christ. I don’t ever want to hear the wordssoft pornfrom either one of you ever again. What the hell, Lola?”
Lola twists in her seat to grin at him. “Relax. If Bells and I were celibate, I’d be way meaner.”
“I’m begging you,” Beckett says, clapping his hands over his ears. “I’m not listening to this.”
“Good,” Lola says cheerfully. “Because it gets worse.”
I huff a little laugh despite myself. “Nothing happened.”
Which is technically true, but it could have. And that alone scares me more than I want to admit.
Because it was too easy—sliding back under Gage Calloway’s gravity like no time had passed at all.
“Yeah, okay,” Lola says around a chuckle as she straightens in the passenger seat.
“Look,” I say, fingers tightening on the steering wheel as I turn onto the quiet street lined with cookie-cutter new builds. “We’re not agreeing to anything yet. We’re just listening. If there’s a good opportunity for us, we’d be stupid not to at least consider it.”
Lola leans back, crossing her arms. “Sure. Or again—and I’m going to continue saying it—this is a trap.”
“It’s not,” I insist quickly.
“Bells.” That nickname slides inside me, squeezes something tender, and makes me feel five inches tall.
I finally look at her. “Gage said it wasn’t.”
