Page 108 of Bring You Back

“Exactly.”

She stops sniffing once she catches my meaning, then smacks my arm with a chuckle. She walks over to Julian to retrieve her sketchbook, and the air shifts with the three of us alone. Eyes roam, connecting with each other’s before averting to safer areas of the room.

“I gotta go,” Reyna finally says, dividing a look between me and Julian. “I told Tommy I’d meet him later.”

“Stay away from the caves,” I tease, and she blanches. The Caves is this town’s very own make-out point. Too many busts once put a halt on the hook-ups, but the caves are still very much there, and last I heard, still very much visited.

“We’re not goingthere,” she says with a laugh now, but her cheeks have turned a bright shade of pink. “Don’t listen to her,” she adds to Julian as a reassurance before leaving, and I laugh to myself.

“Don’t listen to me,” I sing with a pointed look at the front door. I eye Julian to find him already eyeing me.

“What was that about?” he asks with a nod toward the hall.

“You,” I say, my stare cryptic. He lowers the toast in his hand as he studies me, but he knows I didn’t spill his beans to Reyna. It’s not my style. And her reaction when we both stepped out here would’ve been way different if I had. His secret’s still safe.

He sighs in relief—or is that disappointment?—as that knowledge hits him and bites into his toast.

“You’re going to hurt her,” I say, a reminder he doesn’t take too well.

“I won’t be the only one,” he says back with a pointed stare, worry creeping along the edges.

“And it won’t be my first time.”

With that, I turn on my heel and walk back to my room. If I had a BOOM moment, this would be it.

24

Quest for Revenge

Julian

“Dude.”

“Dude.”

I chuckle down at the clipboard in my hand, my mouth slowing to a stop around the lyrics of a Devil Music Co. song playing through the speakers in the shop, then look up to see Banks making his way to the counter with Reyna in tow. He halts at her repetition of his main trademark, but she keeps a steady pace toward me.

“I knew you were into me,” he says to her as he starts moving again.

Reyna meets me at the counter with a wink. “I’m intothisone.”

My own smile slips. Thankfully, Banks stops next to her and talks again. “Remember when I told you my skateboard was missing?”

“No,” I say, seeing the cone in his hand. That explains Reyna. She and Camille must be on break. A line of ice cream starts a fast trail down the side of the cone. “Don’t get that on my shit.”

Banks looks down at the cone. Eyes locked with Reyna’s, he takes an unnecessarily long lick from the bottom of the cone all the way to the top, sucking a chunk off into his mouth. I’m surprised he didn’t moan on the way up.

“What’d you think of that?” he asks her, and I shake my head.

“I give it a six,” she teases and Banks gapes.

“What?” He points at her. “Eight point five, at least.”

I toss my clipboard aside and level him when he looks at me. “I got work to do.”

Banks looks around the shop until his stare lands on the only customer we have right now. The one I’ve already tried helping. The guy who can’t make up his mind about which new apparel to purchase. “Oh, yeah, this place is hopping.” His stare falls on Reyna and he leans against the counter, his eyes sparking with a thought. “You know, you’d look really good in some bunny ears.”

Reyna nods her agreement and I laugh despite myself.

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