Page 98 of Double Bucked

Everett perks up. “Music would be nice.”

I know he’s still sore about his AirPods.

Tough titties. I’m still sore about being lied to for the past year.

“Let’s play a game,” I announce. “Twenty questions. The objective is to get Everett to tell the truth.”

Everett turns to me. Dust hangs in the shaft of light between us. “You can ask me anything. Whatever you want to know.”

Ransom watches us. I take another nip of the whiskey as I roll my first question over my tongue. The alcohol has stopped burning. A bad sign.

“Do you have a wife?” I ask.

“No.”

“A husband?”

A small flicker of surprise in his gaze. Did he think I wouldn’t remember? That soft, intimate night in Paris when I, feeling safe, came out to him as bisexual and he replied, We have so much in common.

Did he think I wouldn’t hang onto his every word?

Doesn’t he understand that this is why lies hurt when they come from your fiancé?

Former fiancé.

“No, again,” he answers.

“What about family? Parents? Siblings?”

His lips thin. “I grew up in an orphanage. I never knew my biological parents.”

“And you’re…on a special forces team. Like James Bond.”

“Wolfpack Special Operations,” he says. “Not quite James Bond.”

“You got a pen that turns into a poisonous dart?” Ransom asks.

“No, but my glasses have a camera in them that can record images. My watch doubles as an emergency beacon. If I’m in trouble, I hit the crown and I can relay a message to my team. I hide a revolver in the stitching of my satchel.”

I press my lips together. “So why did you take this job?”

“I was assigned your case. It’s as simple as that.”

“And that’s all this is to you?” I wave my hand. “A job?”

Everett says nothing to that, so I continue.

“You could have watched me from a distance.”

“I did. For a time. But in order to properly keep you safe, I had to be closer.”

“Did you have to be that close?”

He goes quiet. I can almost hear the gears in his brain turning over his answer.

“Alright,” he says. “Truths. I like podcasts about history. I love puzzles and crosswords. And, yes. I let you win at pool. In fact, I let you win all the time. Because you’re a royal bitch when you lose.”

My cheeks go hot. I suck in a breath to argue with him, but he continues?—

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