Gage nods, his gaze straying to the way Cruz hasn’t removed his hands yet. “Yeah. I haven’t been to check on it for a couple of months, but if everything’s the same, our window to pull it off is at four o’clock.”
I glance at the dash. It’s already three-thirty in the afternoon. “That’s not a lot of time for recon. Why four?”
“In the morning, Bells.” Gage turns in the driver’s seat to face me fully, one arm hooked over the headrest. “We’re having a motel recon sleepover.”
“We didn’t say yes yet,” Cruz says.
Gage looks to me, and I think about what he said to me when we surfed San Onofre last month.
I already know what my answer will be.
“You know what?” I look at him, letting my smirk grow wide. “Hell yeah.”
He lets out a short whoop and leans over the console, catching my mouth with his—quick and hard—before pulling back with a grin that refuses to dim. When he pulls back his eyes are bright and restless, his hand finding my knee again, squeezing once.
“Brother?”
We both turn to Cruz.
“We can do it without you, but it’d be more fun if the three of us were in it together,” Gage says.
“As if I’d let you two have all the fun.” He rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth gives him away.
Gage reaches over and shoves Cruz’s shoulder once, hard enough to rock him. Cruz shoves back. “Hell yeah, man.”
“Alright.” I hold up my hand. “If we’re going to do this, then we need to do some serious recon. We don’t have a lot of time either. And we need a solid plan.”
“Of course, Bell. This is supposed to be a quick,funjob that puts some cash in our pockets while we wait on other things.” He nods toward the office at the front of the building. “I’ll get us a room. We’ll hang out and watch, see if everything still lines up.”
He doesn’t wait for a response. Just pushes the door open and steps out.
The warm air billows into the car in a cloud of dust, enough to spur me into motion. I get out, Cruz following closely behind me.
I stretch my arms over my head and look around. Not much out here—the last rest stop was thirty miles back. Could work inour favor or fuck us, depending on how much through traffic this place gets.
I guess we’ll find out.
Cruz leans his ass against the passenger door, hands tucked in his pockets, watching me.
“What?”
He slides his baseball hat back on, brim flipped backward. “I’m surprised you said yes.”
“Are you though?”
“Nah.” He flashes me a grin. “But I probably should have been.” He says it lightly, but his eyes don’t move off me when he’s done talking.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You always say yes to him.” A shrug, loose and easy.
I move to stand directly in front of him. Look up. “Do you want me to say yes to you more? Is that it?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His jaw shifts. Something moves behind his eyes and then goes still, the way a curtain drops just after someone steps back from a window.
I hold his gaze. “You don’t have to do this job, you know. I would never ask you to do something you weren’t comfortable with.”
He pushes off the car, leaning down so our faces are separated by mere inches. “It’s not about the job.”
