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Dane’s apartment door opens, and I drop the phone in my lap. I expect him to walk straight to me, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even look my way as he gets in his car. There’s a long moment of stillness, but his engine purrs to life right as my phone starts to vibrate.
“Dane.”
“Theo,” the kid snarks back, his voice full of smug satisfaction. “How’d you know it was me?”
“You’re the only unknown number I was expecting.”
“Why were you expecting my call?” He pauses after the question, but it isn’t long enough for me to answer. “Could it have anything to do with you staking out my apartment?”
The kid’s got balls; I’ll give him that. “Who says I’m outside your apartment?”
“Unless you’re slipping it to my eighty-year-old neighbor?—”
“Mrs. Jenkins is a lovely woman.”
“Ew, dude. I do not want to know how you know her name.” Dane audibly shudders at the thought, and I can’t contain the laughter bubbling up my throat. Unfortunately, the sound dies quickly when Dane asks, “Does this have something to do with my sister being in town?”
“Is she?” I keep my tone neutral, hoping the kid won’t see through the lie. “I hadn’t heard.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
He’s wrong, but I don’t argue. “You’re asking for more than you can handle, kid.”
Dane goes quiet for a moment, the clicking of his blinker the only sound coming through the phone. “Am I right, though?”
Sighing, I ignore his question and ask one of my own. “Why is your sister in town?”
“Her ex was being shitty.”
Two parts of his sentence pique my interest, and I’m too invested in the answers to filter the next question that comes out of my mouth. “Which ex, and how shitty?”
Even I can hear the biting command in those words. Dane doesn’t get a chance to respond before the apartment door I’ve been staring at opens.
“I have to go.”
“I wasn’t?—”
I hang up while he’s still talking, my focus narrowing on Charity as she creeps down the stairs toward the parking lot. She looks calmer than she had been at the bar earlier, though she’s still wearing my sweater over the fucking t-shirt dress that barely comes to the middle of her thighs. She’s taken off her combat boots and is padding across the sidewalk in just a pair of oversized wool socks that look more comfortable than functional.
Charity moves lazily toward the trunk of her car, and I sink further into the shadows in the hopes she won’t spot me watching her. She must feel my eyes against her skin because she slows to a stop, her gaze darting once around the parking lot before she disappears.
I damn near bolt out of the driver’s seat in my attempt to see where she’s gone, but there’s no sign of her. Swearing, I grab my gun from the space between the seat and the console, rolling out of the car with practiced ease. The door closes with a nearly silent click that sounds like a cannon blast in the too-quiet parking lot.
Moving into the shadows, I force a breath through my nose and out my mouth. I’m about to round the corner when something shifts behind me. Instinct has me ducking as I spin toward the disturbance. My hand snaps up, pointing my gun at the shape in the shadows.
“You gonna shoot me, Dickbag?”
“Viper?”
My heart pounds as she moves closer, one perfectly manicured hand coming up to press the gun away from her chest. There isn’t enough light to see the play of greens, blues, and purples in the holographic black polish covering her nails, but I know it’s there. “Easy, big guy. I’m not trying to spend the night in the ER.”
I don’t tell her she wouldn’t have lived long enough to make it to the ER if I’d shot her. “Then you shouldn’t sneak up on a man with a gun.”
“Fair enough,” she concedes, moving into my space now that the gun is no longer between us. “What are you doing here, Dickbag?”
“You first, Viper. How did you do that?”
“Do what?” She’s close enough now for me to see the ghost of a smile on her face.
