AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’ll make more sense to you soon.”
“Great, you’re doing riddles now too?” he asked, annoyed.
“Nah, I’ll give you a straighter answer than most. Jenna will, too.”
“And Cadence?” he asked.
“She’s part of the machine. She has a job to do, and though it’s an honorable job, you will come second to her mission.”
“What’s your mission?”
Kru shrugged and twitched his chin toward Captain and Jenna. “To eat barbecue, and drink beer, and swim at the cliffs tonight. I live for the moment, Lucas. Yesterday doesn’t matter, and neither does tomorrow.”
And there it was—the shut-down. Kru was a Riddler just as much as the others were.
“Why won’t anyone just talk in a straight line around me?” he asked as Kru walked away.
“Because you aren’t ready,” Kru said over his shoulder before he went and ordered four brisket sandwiches from Captain.
Bright side though? He handed Lucas two of them.
“Thanks,” Lucas said as Kru walked out.
Jenna was watching him, so he said, “That guy is strange.”
“He said the same thing about you,” she told him as she pulled her hair up into a high ponytail.
He caught up with Captain for a few minutes and then made his way out to the truck, respectfully opening the door for Jenna. Not that she needed a man to do that. He’d seen her truck, and if she was capable of welding? Well, she was interesting. Welding took training and interest in such things.
She lowered his tailgate and they settled the cases of beer in a cooler in the back. She made her way to the ice freezer and withdrew a couple of bags, broke them up on the asphalt, and then poured them over the beers Lucas had set in the Styrofoam cooler. It was a dance they danced without talking or planning. Okay, the woman knew how to pack a cooler. Such things shouldn’t be attractive, right? But for Lucas, everything she did wrenched up his interest and made him pay attention to her a little more.
She looked cute with her hair up like that, her ponytail twitching with the movement of her getting in his truck, her eyes looking brighter than they had before. Her animal was near the surface now, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
She fiddled with the radio and found a song she liked, then hummed it softly as she looked out the window. He crept the truck down the backroad that led to the flat below the cliffs where the others would be setting up.
When they arrived, he got out and dug through the duffel bag in the back seat for a swimsuit while Kru disappeared with the cooler. Jenna stood on the other side of the back seat, digging through her bag. She pulled out a string bikini with sparkly teal sequins on it.
“You’re very heavy,” she said softly.
Her words didn’t make sense. “What do you mean?”
“Your animal.” Her soft silver eyes flickered up to his, and then back down to her bag.
“I don’t mean to be.” He was making her uncomfortable. “I’m…I’m sorry. I’ll let you get dressed.”
He backed away and closed the door, but when he turned, she was standing right there in front of his truck, head cocked, staring at him. “You don’t have to apologize here, you know. Everyone feels heavier than me.”
He didn’t know how to respond, or what she wanted from him, so he waited until she found her words again. “You just feel heavy when you look at me like that.”
And he got it. His attention had been focused on her. She felt that. It wasn’t his intention, but she was aware.
He nodded and ducked his gaze to her shoes, then tilted his head and exposed his neck. When his gaze darted to her again, she wore the faintest smile and had a naughty little glint in her pretty eyes. “I think you are the first to ever expose his neck to me.”
“I have no fight with you.”
“You don’t have a fight with anyone here, do you?”
He shook his head. “If Gunner is gone, then no. Besides, I’m too old to want to fight.”
