I swallowed back the saliva that flooded my mouth, pulled my shoulders back, and forced myself to walk over toward him.
He looked like I remembered.
Better, actually.
Age had favored him in the way men were lucky enough to experience, his features chiseling deeper, the slight creases near his eyes only making his dark eyes look just a little softer. He had the same dark hair, the cleft chin, and the slight hint of freckles over the bridge of his nose.
What was different was the lowered shoulders, the unclenched jaw, the lack of cuts and bruises.
He seemed calmer, more relaxed.
Not up against the world.
I felt bad taking that from him, dragging him into my mess.
But I had no other choice.
I cleared my throat as I stepped closer.
“Nave?”
I saw him startle, saw the way his brows knitted, like he was trying to place the voice.
Then his head lifted.
His gaze landed with impact, knocking what was left of my breath from me.
“Lolly?”
All the moisture in my mouth dried up. My tongue felt chalky as I forced myself to speak.
“Um, I’m not sure if you, uh, remember. But you, erm, once said that if I ever needed anything, that I could come to you.”
“I remember,” he said, giving me a tight little nod. “I remember everything.”
CHAPTER FIVE
PAST
Nave
“What the fuck?” I said, standing just a few feet from the car we’d driven in, staring up at the glass-house mansion before me.
It was a lifted structure for…. absolutely no reason at all. We weren’t anywhere near water that would necessitate putting a fucking house on stilts. And yet.
“Ugly as shit, ain’t it?” my partner on this particular errand asked, making me turn to look at him. Tats, blondish hair, “crazy as fuck” practically stamped across his forehead.
I didn’t know shit about this Dezi guy, save for the fact that he was working for the people who just hired me for a job as well. And that he made me stop on the way over to grab a fucking carton of donut holes. That he promptly ate all by himself. All fifty of them.
And, of course, that he had bloody knuckles and a nasty-ass split lip since the last time I’d seen him.
“Guess the cars stay cool, though,” he said, nodding over toward where two cars were parked in the driveway beneath the house.
I wasn’t paying attention to the cars.
I was more concerned with the twenty-five cameras I counted pointed in our direction. Twenty-five. And those were only the ones I saw. Only the ones facing the driveway.
“The cameras don’t weird you out?”
