“Hey, Angel,” he said warmly. “Holy shit. Did you cook?”
“Uh.” I spun back around and stared at the two slack-jawed adults on my screen. “Oh boy.”
“I think that went well,” Nash said through a mouthful of turkey club.
I put my head down on the counter and groaned. “Did you have to be so charming?”
“Angel, it’s in my DNA. It’s like asking Oprah to stop loving books.”
“Did you have to give them your phone number? They call me every day!”
“I couldn’t come up with a polite way around that one,” Nash confessed. “What harm could it do?”
I sat up and covered my face with my hands. “You don’t understand. They’re going to get on a plane and show up here.”
“I’m lookin’ forward to meeting them.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re delusional. I obviously undercooked the bacon and pork amoebas are eating your brain as we speak.”
“If they’re important to you, they’re important to me. They show up and we’ll deal with it together. You, me, and the amoebas.”
“You have no idea what you’re signing up for,” I warned him.
“Why don’t we worry about this after?” he offered, his blue eyes sparkling with annoying amusement.
“Because we have to worry about it now.”
“There you go emphasizing again.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me slap you across the face with undercooked bacon.”
Nash had finished his sandwich and picked up half of mine. “You know, something struck me as you were telling your folks that you were just visiting me at my place.”
“Cramps from pork amoebas?”
“Funny. No. I was thinkin’ about honesty.”
“Fine. I’ve been meaning to tell you I’ve been using your toothbrush to brush Piper’s teeth,” I joked.
“Explains the dog hair in the toothpaste. Now it’s my turn. You gotta stop lyin’ to your folks.”
I stiffened on the stool. “That’s easier said than done. And I don’t have the energy to explain to you why.”
“Nope. That’s not happening, baby. I’m not letting you push back on this. Hear my words. You have got to trust your parents enough to be honest with them.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, sure. It’ll go something like this. ‘Hi, Mom. I’ve been lying to you for years. Yeah, I’m actually kind of a bounty hunter, which involves some dangerous investigations while staying in seedy roach motels with flimsy doors. I’m really good at it and the rush makes me feel alive after so many years of feeling smothered. Also, I didn’t give up eating red meat like I told you. What’s that? Oh, you’re so devastated you just had a heart attack? Now Dad’s ulcer is acting up again and he’s bleeding internally? Cool.’”
He grinned at me. “Angel.”
I gave the sandwich thief a shove. “Go away. I’m mad at you.”
“This is you pushing me away and this is me stickin’，” he pointed out.
“I changed my mind,” I decided. “I like keeping everyone at arm’s length.”
“No, you haven’t. No, you don’t. And I get that what I’m suggesting is probably downright scary. But, Angel, you have got to trust your folks to handle their shit, which includes but is not limited to their reactions to you and your shit.”
“There’s too much shit in that metaphor. It stinks.”
“Ha. Look, I’m not sayin’ it’s gonna be easy. And I’m not sayin’ that they’re gonna have the exact right reaction. But you have to do the best you can do and trust them to do the same.”
“You want me to confess to every single thing that I’ve lied to them about?”
“Hell, no. No parent needs to hear about sneakin’ out at night and stealin’ booze. Start with now. Tell them about work. Tell them about us.”
“I did tell them about us. That’s why I called them.”
He stayed where he was, sandwich halfway to his mouth, eyes boring into me with the kind of heat that made my stomach feel like it was attached to a pair of flip-flops.
“What?” I dared him.
“You told your mom about me.”
“So?”
He dropped the sandwich and pounced on me.
I squealed and Piper barked playfully.
“So that deserves a reward,” he said, picking me up.
FORTY-TWO
CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHONK
Lina
“When you said ice cream, I thought you meant a date,” I teased Nash as he lowered the tailgate of his truck in the parking lot of Knockemout Cold, the town’s premier ice cream establishment.
I’d spent the day poring over the crime scene reports from both Nash’s shooting and the warehouse. I also answered a few follow-up questions from the Arlington police detective who was wrapping up his report on the Baker brothers’ naked knife fight. To top it off, I’d watched the dashcam footage of Nash’s shooting, looking for clues.
I was a wreck on the first watch, and by the third, I was so sick to my stomach I tackle hugged him as soon as he walked in the door.
“Look who’s learning to like dates,” he said smugly before setting the sweater-wearing Piper in the bed of the truck with her vanilla puppy cuppy. “Think of this as a double date plus one.”
I handed his cone back to him. “It’s hard to get to third base when we have an audience.” I made sure he was looking in my direction before I took a leisurely lick of my salted caramel ice cream.
“Shouldn’t have gotten you a cone,” he groused.
I sent a smug smile in his direction and perched on the tailgate. He stepped between my legs and planted a chilly, chocolate-flavored kiss right on my mouth.
“Gross. You guys are as bad as Knox and Aunt Naomi,” Waylay complained. She was flanked by Nolan and Sloane—on their second date—and carrying a towering ice cream cone.
“How many scoops is that, Way?” Nash asked.
“Three,” she said.
“Naomi is going to murder us,” I whispered.
“You’re in trouble,” Sloane sang as she and Nolan wandered over to his SUV.
Waylay shimmied her way onto the tailgate next to me. “Okay. You guys busted me out of soccer practice and gave me ice cream before dinner. I’m not stupid. What do you want? Did your laptop get a virus? ’Cause my rates have gone up,” the girl said before taking an enthusiastic slurp of her chocolate chocolate chonk.
“We want to talk to you about the night your mom and Duncan Hugo took you,” Nash said.
“Is this because he’s still out there and you guys want to catch him?” she asked.
“Pretty much, yeah,” he said.
I liked that he wasn’t sugarcoating it. That he trusted Waylay to handle the truth even if it was ugly and scary. My parents had tried to hide so many things from me because they were afraid I wasn’t strong enough to handle the bad. But every time the real truth had been revealed, it felt like another tiny betrayal.
I’d hated it…and holy shit, I was doing the same damn thing to them now. I didn’t trust them to be able to deal with truth so I lied to protect them.