I turned to the other people in the room. “What can we bring you?”
“Now that we’ve neutralized the bomb, we’re heading back,” the man who’d gone into the garage said.
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It wouldn’t go off.
Jada looked at Dawson and me, still standing so close we could have entwined pinkies if we moved our hands a hair, and said, “I’m honestly going to try and take a nap. Hosting the party of the year on little sleep isn’t smart.”
I knew she was doing it as much to give Dawson and me time alone as she was serious. She hadn’t had much sleep in the last few days either, and it showed in the dark shadows under her eyes as much as Dawson’s did.
Dawson left two of his phones on the table. The other, he shoved back into his hoodie’s pocket and grabbed the minivan keys from the hook by the door.
“This good?” he asked Nolan, waving the keys in the direction of the van, an unspoken question about whether it was bugged. I hadn’t even known Nolan had scanned it, but he nodded an all clear.
“Lobster roll for you?” Dawson asked him.
“That would be great. Thanks, man.”
I hung the “Be back in thirty” sign at the reception desk, in case any of the guests came back and needed something, and followed Dawson out to the van.
I smirked as he all but bent his body in half to get into the driver’s seat because I’d driven it to Jada’s the day before. He backed the seat up as far as it could go and still almost looked too big for the seat.
“Do you want me to drive?” I asked. “I’m sure you’re almost delirious.”
“No offense, Vi, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let you drive me anywhere again.” He said it with a tease, but it was also the truth. “I still have nightmares about it.”
I laughed, but he didn’t. “Wait, really?”
He nodded.
After we were on the main road, he looked back in the rearview mirror more than was necessary. I couldn’t help twisting in my seat.
“Are we being followed?” I asked.
“No. This isn’t an Ian Fleming novel, as much as you keep making it out to be. No one watches anyone that closely. But if we were, you would’ve just given us away.” His lips were quirking.
I punched him on the shoulder. “Don’t make fun of me. This has all been pretty unbelievable. It does feel like I’m in a spy movie.”
He caught my hand, twisting it so that our fingers were locked, and settled them on his thigh. I swallowed hard as the heat of his body invaded my hand and sent waves of sensations up my arm to my heart.
“I’m sorry you’re involved in this. More sorry than even that godawful night when I called you to come and get me, and you showed up in Jersey’s car by yourself.” His voice was deep with emotions. The same emotions I’d heard in Jada’s earlier. Regret and recrimination.
My brain flashed back to the night five years before. The joy I’d felt when he’d called me for help. The stupidity of thinking I could drive the car after only half a dozen attempts.
“If I’d woken Jersey or Jada, nothing would have happened. That night was on me, not you,” I said quietly, hands going to the end of my hair, twisting it in my fingers as my own regrets flew through me.
“But I still let you drive when I shouldn’t have. Just like now. I not only let you go into the snake’s pit, I asked you to, and it’s put you at an even bigger risk.” He was angry with himself.
I squeezed his hand, pulling it to me and kissing the jagged scar he’d gotten from saving my life. I set our joined hands on my thigh instead of his. He glanced over, dragging his eyes down the length of me to where our hands rested before darting them back to the road.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked quietly.
He smiled. “I think you know you can.”
“As terrifying as it’s all been, it’s actually the first time I’ve really felt alive in a long time.”
We pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, he turned the engine off, and then turned to me. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. This. I feel alive here. With you. Back in Palo Alto, I was just going through the motions, checking the boxes, doing what I knew everyone expected of me.”
