Page 35 of After Tonight

“That’s because we don’t spend that time of day together.”

“But now we will be.”

Yeah, and she was going to have to try to do it without thinking about his mouth the entire time. “Right. So I’ll help you…de-program.”

“You’ll make me want to do other things with a woman alone in my house at night?”

“Right.”

“No, you won’t.”

Why the hell was she still standing here talking about this? “We’re not doing that stuff, Derek.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to make me want to do other things more. Trust me.”

She blew out a breath and started for the front door. Great, now she was going to be sitting on this couch with him, watching a movie, and thinking about the things he would rather be doing. “I’ll pick the movie. Just be sure you have popcorn. I like kettle corn.”

Her hand was on the doorknob when he asked, “Does Lucy like kettle corn?”

Right. The woman he was practicing all of this for. And the answer to this question about Lucy, she did know. “Okay fine, get cheddar.”

She pulled the door open and escaped before he said anything else about Lucy. Or his mouth. Thank God. Both subjects were making Riley far jumpier than she would have liked. Or would ever admit.

* * *

“Hey, Riley.”

Riley looked up from the website she was finishing for her brother’s medical clinic to see Peyton pulling out the chair across the table.

“Hey.” She grinned at the other woman. Peyton had always been a wild child. She partied hard, rebelled against most conventions, and had a mouth. Riley had always loved her. They hadn’t been super close. Peyton wasn’t a nerd at all. But she had a don’t-fuck-with-me attitude that Riley had always admired. “How are things?”

Peyton was with Scott Hansen now. The town cop. It was the most ironic pairing ever, and Riley loved everything about it. Scott gave Peyton some very much-needed stability, and Peyton made the by-the-book guy relax a little.

“Good.” Peyton grinned a grin Riley had never seen from her before. It was full of satisfaction and true happiness. “Things are really good.”

“I’m glad.” And she really was. Scott and Peyton were good for each other. Someday Riley would find that too. Not with a guy in Sapphire Falls. Not with a guy in Nebraska, God willing. But she’d eventually find someone who understood her and supported her for who she was the way Scott did for Peyton. Peyton didn’t conform to many of the small-town ideals, but she could be herself with Scott. And she didn’t have a mother who was always pointing out the ways that she was different, and who held to the idea that those differences were why she was unhappy.

Riley pulled her focus back to Peyton as the other woman leaned in. Peyton had had a rough childhood, with a mom with mental illness and a neglectful father. Riley knew she should be grateful for having parents who were involved in her life and cared. But there was a tiny, selfish bit of her that kind of envied Peyton not having her parents meddling in her decisions.

“I wanted to ask you a question,” Peyton said, leaning onto her forearms on the table.

“Okay, shoot.”

“You can probably hack any website, right?”

Riley took her hands off her keyboard. She hadn’t been expecting that question. “Um…”

Peyton grinned. “I’m not undercover for Scott or anything. I have an idea, but I wanted to run it past you before I mention it to him.”

Riley ran a hand through her hair. How to answer the question? With the honest answer—which was, “yeah I can hack pretty much any website”—or the “I don’t know what you’ve heard but it’s not completely true” that she’d been giving her mother, or the safe “why do you need to know?” before spilling anything.

“Why do you need to know?” she asked.

Peyton laughed. “Okay, fair enough.” But she sobered almost immediately. “I don’t know how much you know about the special task force Scott is a part of, but he’s been working for a few years with a group that infiltrates sex trafficking rings and works to bring them down.”

Riley hadn’t known that. “Wow. Really? Right here in Nebraska?”

Peyton nodded. “It’s horrible to think about but yeah, it happens right here. He works throughout the Midwest, but there are definitely people here.”

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