The cruiser disappears around a bend. Tanner sprints after it, his shouting getting fainter.
Something bangs against the truck, and I nearly scream.
Seth and Carter are at the doors, pulling handles, water streaming down their bodies. I slam the unlock button.
Carter yanks open the driver’s side. “Move.”
I scramble over the console, hip catching the gearshift, landing awkwardly in the passenger seat. Both men are soaking wet and very, very naked.
Don’t look.
I catch a glimpse of water-slicked skin and muscle and?—
Windshield. Stare at the windshield.
“Kai just stole a cop car.” My voice sounds strangled. “While naked. With a bag on his head. A bag he found—where?”
“Who knows with Kai?” Carter starts the engine. “That’s just who he is.”
Seth is in the back, water dripping everywhere, and tosses shorts at Carter’s head. “Get dressed. Move.”
Carter pushes his seat back and wrestles into the shorts while driving, which seems like it should be physically impossible. My peripheral vision catches every flex of muscle, every shift of bare skin, every drop of water trailing down his chest.
Eyes forward, June. Forward.
Seth’s low voice comes from the back. “That was close. Goddamn Tanner.” A pause. His tone drops, turns dangerous. “He was lucky he left you alone. We were ready to come out of that water and put him on his ass.”
I risk a glance back. Seth is pulling on jeans, water dripping from his dark hair.
“You three are making this chaperoning thing a nightmare,” I say.
“Never promised we’d be easy.” Carter guns the engine. “Let’s go find our idiot.”
“Where did he even go?”
Seth leans forward between the seats, wet hair plastered to his forehead, a grin cracking through his usual severity. “He had a plan. Couldn’t talk him out of it.”
“What kind of plan involves stealing a cop car while naked?”
“A Kai plan.”
We tear down the dirt path and hit the main road. A few minutes later, movement in the trees?—
Kai bursts from the darkness, sprinting toward us, paper bag clutched over his groin, the biggest grin I’ve ever seen splitting his face.
Carter slams on the brakes. Kai yanks open the back door and throws himself inside next to Seth.
“WOO-HOO!” He’s breathing hard, grinning like a maniac. “That wasinsane!”
“What happened?” I twist around. “Where’s the cruiser?”
He shoves wet hair from his face. “Drove the cruiser to that hill past the bend, jumped out, then gave it a nice push toward the river. Rolled into some bushes, then watched Tanner chase after it screaming. After that, I ran.”
“You rolled a cop car into the river.”
“Might’ve made it in. Might not. Either way, his problem now.”
Carter is laughing, shoulders shaking. Seth is chuckling. And somehow, despite the felonies, despite Tanner, despite everything, I’m laughing too.
