Brett’s face drained.
Dylan let him go.
Brett stumbled, straightened his shirt like dignity could be ironed back into place, and glared at me with one last flash of hate that didn’t land the way he wanted it to.
Then he left.
His friends followed.
The girls too.
People around us slowly remembered how to breathe. Conversations restarted in pieces. Someone laughed too loudly. A server peeked out from the taco place and then immediately went back inside.
Lily turned to Nate.
“You have recordings?”
Nate held up a blank screen.
“No,” he said. “But villains never check.”
Lily stared at him for one second.
Then she smiled.
“Oh, I like you.”
Nate bowed slightly. “That’s the usual reaction.”
“It is not,” Dylan and I said at the same time.
Then we looked at each other.
Big mistake.
The whole sidewalk seemed to shrink.
His eyes moved over me again, slower now that the immediate threat had passed. The black dress. The denim jacket. The diamonds in my ears. The turquoise ring on my hand. His gaze caught, just for a second, on the hint of silver and mother-of-pearl beneath my sleeve.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Dylan always noticed.
“You okay?” he asked.
I hated that question.
I hated wanting to answer honestly.
“I had it handled.”
His expression didn’t change.
Nate made a sound like he had swallowed a laugh and valued his life too much to release it.
Lily turned toward me. “You did not have it handled. I had it handled. With my tote bag.”
