She looked at his mouth; at the small line that formed when he was absolutely certain of something. Then she looked back at her phone.
“Will you be here when I call?” she asked.
“Do you want me here?”
“Yes,” she said. “But maybe not in the room for the whole thing. I don’t want them to feel like I’m performing for you.”
“I can grab coffee,” he said. “Loiter in the hallway like a proper anxious boyfriend.”
The word pinged around the room.
Boyfriend.
Her heart did a small, startled dance. “Is that what you are?”
He met her gaze. “Unless you’d like to renegotiate my contract.”
She laughed, the sound wobbling. “No. That title’s fine.”
“Good.” He kissed her forehead, then her mouth, slow and reassuring. “I’ll shower first, then I’ll get out of your hair. We’re supposed to meet with the mayor at eleven anyway.”
“Right.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Preliminary lease talk. Contractors. Adult stuff.”
“You say that like we didn’t already talk in bed about wiring a warehouse,” he said.
Her cheeks warmed. “That was different adult stuff.”
He grinned. “Both important.”
He slid out of bed and headed to the bathroom, pausing in the doorway to look back at her. “Call them, Bree. You don’t have to have every answer. Just tell them the truth.”
She nodded, fingers tight around her phone. “Yeah. Okay.”
The shower started; water hit the tile in a steady rush.
Bree opened her mom’s text and hit the call icon.
Her parents picked up on the second ring. That alone told her they had been waiting.
“Hi, honey,” her mom said. “How are you feeling? We watched the race on TV. Your dad kept yelling at the announcer.”
Her dad’s voice came faintly in the background. “He kept calling the corners by the wrong names.”
Bree smiled despite the nerves. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. I’m okay. Hank’s okay. It was a big day.”
“So we saw,” her dad said, taking the phone from her mom by the sound of it. “That pass on the last lap. Damn, Bree. That was something.”
“I didn’t do anything except clutch my sketchbook and forget how to breathe,” she said. “Hank did the hard part.”
“You were there,” he said. “Counts for something.”
Her mom reclaimed the phone. “We heard there was some kind of cheating scandal,” she whispered. “Are you safe? Are you staying away from those people?”
“Yes,” Bree said quickly. “I’m safe. Copper Moon PD is on top of it. Sergeant Diaz could probably take down an entire biker gang with a look.”
Her mom made a doubtful sound. “I don’t like that you needed to find out.”
“None of us liked it,” Bree said. “But Hank did the right thing. He spoke up. They found the illegal equipment. Nobody got hurt.”
