Page 166 of High Stick Heartthrob

Rome grabbed Jago’s left shoulder. “Hey, do they have naked maids? Like we can pay someone to clean his place while they’re naked? We can watch, right?”

“You guys are perverts,” I said. “Goodbye.”

They all started to screamcongratsas I reached over and hung up the call.

Atlas looked at me.

I smiled. “That’s a good thing you have there, Atlas.”

“Relax, love.”

“What?”

“I know my position when it comes to this job,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about that right now either.”

I nodded.

I respected what he said and how he said it.

The connection between us. The connection with him and this team.

There was another bout of silence between Atlas and me.

“I want to find him and talk to him,” I said.

“Who? What?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Just a random thought. I’m talking about Charles.”

“Oh, right. Your grandmother’s secret-”

“Stop,” I said. “I don’t need to put those images in my head ever again.”

“You can just go through a closet and find more pictures, right?”

“Atlas. Not funny.”

He smiled. He reached over and stroked my cheek. “Listen, love, you tell me what you want to do about it. I’m there.”

“You really had someone look into the guy?”

“It was more luck than anything,” he said. “One of the letters had a piece of envelope. There were a few numbers of a zip code. So I called my agent and demanded he figure it out.”

“Is that your agent’s job?”

“Hell no,” Atlas said. “But the guy has millions of dollars because of me. He can help me out.”

“You did that for me.”

“Yes, Hazel. I did that for you.”

“Why?”

“Why can’t I just do something for you? There doesn’t have to be a motive behind it.”

“Everything has a motive behind it, Atlas.”

He took a deep breath. “This is how it’s going to be with you? All the time?”

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