Page 101 of Captured Immune

“Gold Coast Hotel and Casino, please,” Trey says.

Fifteen minutes later, the driver drops us off outside a large white building with wide arches in the front. Some gold letters at the top of the building readcasino.

I wait until the taxi is gone before saying, “I thought we were going to Chinatown.”

“We are.”

I glance around us because I must be missing something, but even after a second look, I confirm that there’s nothing here that remotely resembles a Chinatown. No Chinese characters on buildings. No pagodas. No dragons with open mouths scaring off the evil.

“In case anyone asked him, I didn’t want the driver dropping us offinsideChinatown,” Trey says as he begins half walking, half limping down the sidewalk. “We’re only a few blocks away.”

“How many is a few?” One block already sounds like too much. This backpack is heavy, my body is sore, and these flats I’m wearing are almost paper thin. I might as well be barefoot.

“Would you like me to carry you?”

“Are you serious? You have broken ribs, and you can barely walk on your own.”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “I carried you with my broken ribs before. And I did it for miles.”

“What? When?”

“How do you think I got us to that barn after my motorcycle ran out of gas?”

My mouth drops. “You had me on a motorcycle while I was passed out?”

“Yep.”

“Where is it now?”

He shrugs again. “On the side of a road somewhere.”

“But you love that thing.”

“Not as much as I love you.”

My heart skips a beat as I gaze up at him. His eyes meet mine with a look that says,I mean those words with every fiber of my soul.

Earlier, when we were on the flying tire and he confessed his love to me, I didn’t know how to feel. At the time, I was trying to process the idea that we didn’t meet by accident and that he spent weeks fake-dating me solely to gather information for his uncle. Hearing him say the L-word again now, Istilldon’t know how to feel.

I keep putting one foot in front of the other. “Didn’t you say that besides your memory box, your motorcycle is your most sentimental possession?”

Trey told me once that I’m the first woman he’s ever taken on a motorcycle ride. He said his motorcycle is special to him because it’s what he rode while he traveled the states, searching for hisplace in the world. He said he had never wanted to share that experience with anyone else until he met me.

“You remember me saying that?” Trey says.

“Of course. You don’t open up a lot. Whenever you do, I take notes.”

He keeps his attention on the sidewalk. “I’ve opened up more with you than I have with anyone else.”

“That’s not true. Don’t you tell Liz everything?”

“Nah. She has to force it out of me. And trust me, I make her work for it.”

Liz has told me on more than one occasion that Trey is like a puzzle box:“No matter how hard you twist and turn him, he won’t open. However, if you’re patient and keep working on him, you’ll be rewarded with bits and pieces, but it’s still never the full picture.”

At the time, I wasn’t sure if I agreed with Liz’s description of Trey. I thought after he had shared with me that his parents hadn’t actually died in a house fire that I had unlocked everything I needed to know. Turns out, Liz was right.

I play with the straps of our backpack as I ask, “Have you ever told Liz that you love her?”

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