I sighed. “No. Whatever it is, no.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
“Don’t need to. I don’t like that look.”
“Let’s just be honest for a second. Basile likes you a hell of a lot more than he likes me. To be honest, I might be offended if you weren’t so pretty.”
I blushed scarlet.
“If you were to talk to him, alone, maybe we could settle our little disagreement once and for all.”
I balked. “Now you’re offering me up asbait?”
“Well, if you’re right, and he has nothing to do with this, then you’ll be perfectly fine. If you’re not, well, it’s been a pleasure knowing you …”
I punched him in the arm.
“Kidding, I’m kidding. It’s just one conversation, and I’ll stay close enough to smell.”
“God, I hope not.” I pinched my nose. “What am I supposed to say anyway? Someone accused your friends of assaulting someone. Do you have any comment? If he wants to sue over Grant, I’m sure this won’t be welcome.”
“Don’t make it about that,” he said, stroking his hand over the stubble on his chin. He needed a shave; we were both looking a little worse for the wear. “Pretend like you need his help with something else.” His mouth twisted, and for a second, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Trust me, I don’t like it either, but we need this. For Dani.”
“But what if—?” My mind started to go haywire, imagining every freak accident imaginable.
“It won’t.” He grabbed my hand. “It’ll be alright, I promise.”
I blew out my cheeks. “Fine, but you owe me, like, … ten thousand chocolate cookies. And the good ones, too.”
He flashed a boyish grin, all dimples. “When we crack this case, I’ll get you a cookie the size of a car.”
I pulled out my phone, still open to Basile’s TikTok page. There were hundreds of comments from Basile’s thousands of followers, and I felt myself shrinking down, a small voice in my head whispering,What would someone like him get from hearing a speech by someone like you?*
I’d never been the type of person to glamorize all that. I’d always preferred gentleness and kindness to flashiness and charm, but now that I watched him, I couldn’t look away. His charisma bled across the screen—the ease of his smile, the way everything he said made so much sense. How his theory could unlock an entire new world to us. And despite the whispers of caution at the back of my mind, I knew he was the only one who could help me learn more.
“It must take him forever to do this shit,” Max said, looking over. “What a waste of time.”
“Maybe he just wants people to like him.”
“Don’t tell me you fall for all that, the trousers and the shiny shoes and the hair? He’s such a try-hard.”
“Just because some people like to present themselves better than just having rolled in the barn …”
“You used to not mind rolling in the barn with me.” He grinned, and it was so devilish I had to smile.
His expression grew serious for a moment. “You know, for how much you used to hate all this stuff, you’re sure spending a lot of time on it. You’re getting sucked into this stuff again, just like with Jamie.”
The mention of Jamie caught me off guard. It had been a silent truce between us that we wouldn’t mention that final year before I left, our breakup, any of it. “This isn’t like that.”
“Isn’t it? I feel like I’m losing you all over again.” He reached out his hand and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. His hand lingered against my cheek.
“You never lost me,” I murmured. I hadn’t meant for it to be such a weighted statement, and I flushed as soon as I said it.
It was quiet for a moment, his eyes intently focused on mine. “Good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Basile!”
