“Split up?”
“It’s . . . not a small number of gift shops.”
I stare at him, uncomprehending. “Tegan and I can’t just . . .” I trail off, try again. “We wouldn’t even know how to—”
“Not you and Tegan.”
“Notme and—?”
He interrupts me before I can finish.
Stuns me.
He knows exactly what I’ve been having so much trouble with, I think.
“Tegan and Salem,” he says. “And you and me.”
Chapter 10
Adam
“She better not change her mind.”
It’s the first thing Salem says to me when she gets out of the second rental car we’re just back from picking up. I’ve been waiting for her by the van in the hotel’s parking lot, knowing she stopped off on the way back to get coffee. It’s just past ten a.m. and already brutally hot, even though I’ve been standing in a shady spot. Salem doesn’t even seem to notice the temperature. The paper cup of coffee she’s got in one hand is comically large.
“She won’t,” I say, but honestly, I’m not sure.
I haven’t been sure of anything since I met Jess Greene.
When she left the pool last night, after we’d reached our tentative agreement, I sat by myself for another twenty minutes, part of me wondering if any second I’d wake up in my uncomfortable hotel bed, having dreamed the whole thing: the sight of Jess in shorts by the pool, the conversation we had, the deal we made.
I thought,I can’t believe she said yes.
I wish I could say I had the idea earlier, that I’d thought of it sometime between leaving Curtis MacSherry’s place and the moment I’d left my hotel room—achy and irritated—for a head-clearing run. But the truth is, I didn’t think of us splitting up until I sat next to her. Until I saw that flash of emotion in her eyes after I tried—clumsily, probably, but truthfully—to compliment her about Tegan.
She looked up to the sky and I saw her throat bob in a heavy swallow. I saw her close her eyes tight before opening them again, fixing her gaze on the trees above. Gathering herself.
I only wanted, in that moment, to give her a break. From Salem, from her sister. As much of one as I could manage, while still doing what I needed to do for my job.
She was desperate for a break; I could see it.
That’s how I got the idea.
Salem comes to stand next to me in the shade, lifting the lid off her coffee. It is steaming hot but she takes a big sip anyway, then makes a noise of satisfaction. Thank God. She has not had a good thing to say about a cup of coffee she’s had in days, and I can’t say that’s been helping matters.
“Hawk,” she says, after a few seconds, and I can hear in her voice the caffeine’s already working. She’s starting to feel more human. In the office, she barely talks before about nine thirty, and this morning, I woke her up with a call just before six, to tell her about the plan.
To tell her what Jess had agreed to.
“Yeah?”
“You did well yesterday.”
I turn my head and look down at her. She’s watching the hotel’s front doors, blowing on her coffee.
“You had good focus with MacSherry, even though things went wrong. He’s not an easy interview.”
Probably I should be happier to hear this. In fact, I should have been more worried, all day yesterday, about how pissed Salem seemed with the way things had ended up. I should’ve been focused on the story, the consequences to the story. The consequences to how Salem would see my work.
