“Yeah, well,” Lola says quietly, “I don’t exactly trust Gage’s word.”
“I get that, I do. But you trust mine, right?”
Her expression softens. “Of course.”
“Then trust me when I tell you I don’t think they’re setting us up. If I thought this was dangerous for us—for you—I'd already have us halfway back down the highway.”
Beckett huffs. “Then what’s the play?”
“The play,” I say, pulling into the driveway of the model home. “Is that we walk in, listen, and walk out still calling the shots. No one’s steamrolling us.”
Beckett gives a sharp nod. “Good.”
Lola sighs and pops her door open. “Fine. But if any of the Calloways look at me funny, I’m biting someone.”
“That’s weirdly on brand for you,” I say, climbing out of the car.
The air smells like sun-baked stucco and fresh paint.
It’s quiet, the kind that feels stretched thin and waiting.
And standing by the door, arms crossed, shirt stretched obscene-tight across his chest is Bishop Calloway. Thirty minutes early.
Of fucking course he is.
Lola mutters, “Ugh.”
Beckett sighs. “Fuck. Here we go.”
And I can’t help but notice the way he fills out that black surf-brand tee. The way his jeans sit low on his hips. The way his gaze tracks us with that unreadable, carved-from-stone focus.
My pulse does something stupid.
I school my features into something cool, aiming for unbothered and unimpressed.
“You’re early, Bishop,” I call as we approach. “Trying to win a gold star?”
His eyes flick over me once—slow, assessing. A soft scrape of danger. “Just making sure this wasn’t an ambush.”
I smile, lips curving like the edge of a knife, sugar coating venom. Bishop's eyes narrow just slightly, catching the threat beneath the honey.
“Oh, Bishop Calloway.” I step past him, punching in the code for the lockbox. “Trust me. If I wanted to ambush you, you’d never see me coming.”
The door clicks open.
Behind me, Lola mutters, “God, you two are exhausting.”
The model home smells like drywall dust and lemon cleaner. It’s too clean, too bright, too staged. It’s perfect for this meeting.
And it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Bishop steps inside behind us, the door clicking shut with a soft, definitive sound. He posts himself a few feet off the wall, like he needs both space and a vantage point, his gaze sweeping the open-concept room with that same tactical stillness he’s always had.
Bishop’s attention flickers around the space before it settles on me. “This is not the house you described the other night.”
My lips twitch at the corners. “Oh, so youwerelistening.”
“Aren’t I always?”
