His movie debut was just last month, a walk-on part in the latest Hikaru Paige cinematic masterpiece. Paige, known for his cerebral thrillers, astutely cast him as the spoiled-rotten trust-fund baby. I stood in line for three hours to see it when it came to the local film festival. To be fair, Rune played the part toperfection, and with a lot more heart than had been expected of him.
He slips from the guy’s hold and splashes forward a few feet, touching his flask to his brow to get a better look at me.
I shift, hyperaware of the fact that I look sorta unhoused and smell of cigarettes.
Recognition brightens his features.
“Is that my Booney?” His grin broadens. “You come here to arrest me again?”
8
MAVERICK
I was just dreamingabout you on the plane, I think to myself as I take another swig of…whatever it was Pierce put in this flask. I’m vaguely aware that Boone went to UT, but I’m just as sure he graduated already.
What the fuck is he doing here tonight?
“Who’s Rune?” Pierce asks, tightening his grip on me as he pulls the flask from my hands, pouring the contents over the side.
Ugh. I hate his whole vibe.
“I’mRune,” I explain, my belly heating at the thought of Boone Hitchens using my given name. “Booney knew me when I was a kid. Maverick is my middle name.”
“Rune’s kind of a stupid name,” he snorts. “Then again, so is Booney.”
Snooty ass.
“Wait,” Taylor says, pulling her shirt back on. “Isn’t Booney that camp counselor you went on—and on—about at the lake party last month?”
Pierce’s mouth thins to a flat line, and it’s all I can do not to roll my eyes.You blow a guy one time, and he thinks he’s got a say.
I send Tay thecut itsignal.
Boone tilts his head. “I remember thinking it was a phase when you introduced yourself as Maverick,” he says, a smile ghosting his lips, as if imagining the embarrassingly earnest, pimple-faced kid who’d had a massive crush on his camp counselor.
Ugh. So humiliating.
Glancing over at Uncle Hopper’s sculptures on the main mall, I smile to myself.
He probably came tonight to commune with his favorite artist.
Given what happened today, I’m also grateful that Boone has always been a man of principle.
As much as I’d love to think otherwise, the incident in Switzerland was not an anomaly, and there are more than a few people in the industry who wouldn’t have let age—or a clear lack of consent—stop them.
The humid breeze reminds me I’m a little underdressed, and that Booney isDetectiveHitchens. I step away from Pierce’s overly possessive grip, stumbling a little as I cross my hands in front of my see-through jockeys.
Gesturing in a circle, Boone reminds us why he’s here. “Time for y’all to wrap it up and head out before the campus police make their rounds.”
God, the authority in his voice is dizzying, and don’t get me started on what that shoulder holster is doing to my parts below the waist. I’m taller and broader than him, but I’d let that man do whatever he wanted to me. In bed, on the couch, against a wall…nmph.
Tay picks her way out of the fountain, sending me a small grimace. I wave her off. Tay’s mom is the head of the English Lit department here, and she doesn’t need that smoke.
“Wait. You’re not campus police?” Pierce challenges. Dickhead.
Booney slips a wallet from his back pocket, flipping it open. “Austin PD, actually.”
I giggle at the move.
