Pearl gasped.“Exactly.”
Anchor groaned.“Don’t encourage her.”
McKayla smiled wide.
There it was.The whole reason I’d suggested the ride.Not that I’d admit that to anyone.
She finally ordered cookie dough in a waffle cone, then looked at me like I should be proud of her.
We got our ice cream and stood off to the side near the bikes, everyone eating in the sun like we were normal people doing a normal thing on a normal day.
We weren’t.But for a few minutes, it was close enough.
McKayla licked a drip before it ran down the cone and looked out at the road.“This was a good idea.”
I leaned against my bike beside her.“Yeah.”
“Don’t sound too excited.”
“I’m thrilled.”
“You sound like a hostage.”
I looked at her.
She looked back.
Then both of us laughed.
And for the first time in days, the sound of her laughing didn’t feel like something I had to earn.
It just happened.
Light.
Easy.
Dangerous.
Because the more she became comfortable beside me, the more I forgot she wasn’t mine to keep safe forever.And that was exactly the kind of thinking that got a man in trouble.
Chapter Ten
McKayla
Two more days of surveillance footage and I was officially ready to launch the clubhouse laptop directly into the lake.
Not gently either.I wanted to really put my back into it.
I sat cross-legged on the bed in my room staring at the paused screen while rubbing at the spot between my eyes that had started throbbing an hour ago.The footage blurred together after a while.Tourists screaming through the haunted house.Employees walking between buildings.Club members coming and going.Teenagers making out where they thought cameras wouldn’t catch them.
Unfortunately for them, cameras caught everything.
Except the one damn thing I actually needed them to catch.The guy in the hoodie hadn’t shown up again.
That was the part that kept bothering me.The more footage I watched, the more convinced I became that he knew exactly where the cameras were.He moved around them too carefully.Whenever he did appear, it was brief.A shoulder.A profile.A glimpse of boots disappearing around a corner.
It almost felt intentional.
