Page 31 of What Started In Deception

“Hey,” he said gently as he slid his hand down her arm, feeling her tense. He struggled with an inner cringe because this was exactly what couldn’t happen.

She looked at him again.

“I’m not talking about sex. That’s certainly not part of our deal. But you can’t stiffen up when I put my hands on you. It’ll be a dead giveaway.”

She held his gaze for several more seconds. “Okay. We can hold hands.” She held hers out to him.

He took it, lacing his fingers with hers, liking the feel of her small hand tucked in his. “Not so bad, right?”

She shook her head. “No, not so bad.”

“Should we go find our spot?”

She nodded as they walked through the parking lot, then looked both ways as they crossed the street with the crowd, heading toward the grassy decline where a huge, inflated screen had been set up and two or three hundred people already sat.

“Wow. This is a perfect spot for this.”

“Yeah, there’s not a bad seat to be had. We just want to be able to get close enough to the speakers to hear.”

“Ms. Monroe,” a group of older kids yelled as they waved from their blankets not far away.

She grinned, waving back. “Some of my kids,” she told him as they kept moving toward the center of the crowd. “It’s crazy that I have students who are old enough to be in middle school. It makes me feel old.”

“Twenty-nine is pretty geriatric.”

She grinned again, bumping her arm into his. “What does that make you, then, if you’re three years older than me?”

“Apparently, a dinosaur.”

She laughed.

He chuckled, loving that sound, considering it a personal victory every time he heard it. So far, she’d laughed three times tonight.

“How about here?” she suggested, stopping in a small clearing in the middle of the field.

He winced, noting the massive number of people surrounding them and the nonexistent cover if there were to be an active shooter situation. “If you like it, I like it.”

Her brow furrowed. “No, you don’t.”

He shrugged, imagining that it was a good thing she was already starting to be able to read him. “Sometimes I can’t shut my brain off.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Our lack of cover. Not being able to move quickly if we have to. Being trampled.”

“We can find someplace different.”

He shook his head. “Let’s do this.”

“Are you going to be able to relax?”

He nodded, even though he never fully relaxed. It was too ingrained in him to be constantly situationally aware. “I’ll be fine once I have a turkey sub in my hand.”

She smiled. “We can make that happen.”

He spread out the blanket, sitting down in the center as Lydia did.

“Here you go,” she said, grabbing plates and their large sandwiches.