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“Who am I to tell you what to do?” I asked. I was too impressed to say anything critical. “I mean, you learned how to make them, not just play them. That sounds productive. A lot of people would love to learn how to do that.”
Corey pressed a button on his phone to shut it off and planted it on the armrest next to him. “So Bambi ... Kayli. Sorry. I meant Kayli.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Sorry I lied to you before. It’s just I didn’t really think I’d see you again.”
“Surprise, surprise, huh?” He grinned and sat up. “Well, while you’re here, do you want to look around?”
“You mean the building?”
“Or outside.” He stood, and then turned to me. He rolled his shoulders back and forth. “I’ve been hunched over a computer all week. How about a short walk around the lake?”
“What lake?”
His eyes brightened and he held out a hand, palm up in invitation. “Come on and see the lake. You might like it.”
It wasn’t like I had much else to do. I took his hand, letting him help me stand up. After, he squeezed it gently once and released me. The move was odd to me, mostly odd because I actually felt a warmth from him I wasn’t expecting. He wasn’t just friendly. There was something about him I was drawn to. He made an effort that made it impossible to hold up any wall against him. He simply climbed over it and offered to help you knock it down. Instant and overwhelming.
He picked up his phone again, stuffing it into his pocket. I followed him out of the apartment and to the elevator. He walked close to me so that his arm brushed mine but he didn’t seem to notice. Normally I’d shove my elbow into a guy that tried that, but I didn’t have the heart. He wasn’t doing it to annoy me like I thought most guys did. He just seemed so comfortable, like we were already best friends, and this was just something best friends would do.
“So were you creating your game?” I asked as I followed him inside the elevator and he hit the button for the main floor. “Is that why you were at a computer?”
“Oh,” he said. He stared at the shiny doors as the elevator started to sink to the lobby. “Well, a little bit. Mostly it was tracking our target today.”
“Me or the guy we’re stealing the wallet from?” I asked.
His cheeks tinted and he pressed a palm to the back of his short blond hair, rubbing at his scalp. “Well, I guess you could say both. Although your information wasn’t too hard to locate. We needed to dig up some details about you. You know, just to make sure you weren’t a psycho killer.”
I wanted to yell at him for stalking me. When it came down to it, I didn’t know what to yell at him for. Or maybe I simply couldn’t. His sheepish grin at admitting what he’d been up to had me smirking back. I couldn’t argue with that face. How did he do that?
The elevator doors opened. I followed him out and through the back doors. We crossed a smaller parking lot, and then between tennis courts and a dusty baseball field to a road. When the traffic paused, we crossed the street toward a park on the other side.
The entire edge of the lake had a concrete structure like a giant rectangular pool. At the four corners appeared to be small areas of green lawn park space. There were palmetto trees lining the long sides of the lake, and the short sides had sprawling live oaks. The concrete walking path surrounded the entire lake, with the occasional bench facing out toward the water.
The water lapped gently at the sides of the bank. Ripples eased over the surface, soft against the breeze. From our angle, the fancy Charleston homes on the other side reflected in the water with a wavy distortion of colors.
“It’s more like a big pond,” Corey said. He pointed across the water to the houses lined up, picturesque at the start of autumn, decorated with pumpkins and orange and red leaves. “They usually take the horse carriages around this way. I think it’s part of the normal tourist routes.”
I could see why. The view was okay if you liked to look at rich people’s homes, but I did like the view of the water. “Must be nice to live so close to the bay and the ocean, and then have a lake right outside to walk around.”
“Just wait until you see it around Christmas. We’ll take one of those walking tours then.” He rushed ahead of me a little, claiming a spot on the wide sidewalk that surrounded the lake. He stopped there and turned expectantly toward me, waiting.
It was crazy adorable. He didn’t even ask if I would, he simply assumed I’d be around during Christmas and would go with him. His happy nature was infectious, and I felt my own seemingly-constant inner anger ebbing away. I jogged over until I was standing beside him, allowing myself, for the moment, to get swept away.
He started walking and I followed beside him. For a while, he didn’t say anything. He walked close to me again, his arm brushing mine. He let me have the inside lane, so I could have the view of the lake, but he was so tall, he could see over my head anyway.
The lake dazzled my eyes, distracting me. The mirrored city and sky made it seem like I could fall in and be a part of a reflected world. The only distinction that separated it was the soft ripples, and occasionally those ripples sparkled under the sunlight, as if suggesting that reflected world was better than the one we walked in.
When I finally drew myself from staring at the lake, I found Corey smiling at me in the silence. His cheeks bunched up close to his blue eyes. “Don’t fall in,” he said.
I grinned back, unable to stop myself. “I bet kids love it. Is it deep?”
“I think you can wade out a little, if you want. It’s probably cold right now. During the summer, some kids usually sail little boats or use those electric ones.” He snapped his fingers. “We should get some of those. We could race them.”
“You haven’t done it before?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. I’m usually busy.”
“Doing what?”
He opened his mouth to answer when a voice called out. “Corey?”
We stopped. Corey turned, scanned the surroundings and then paused, zeroing in on an older gentleman running up. It looked like he stopped his car in a no parking zone near the street and had jumped out. The driver’s side door was still hanging open.
Corey darted until he was in front of me, as if to cut off my view. He frowned. “Stay behind me,” he said in a suddenly deep voice.
The edgy feeling I’d been fighting all morning crawled back through me. I bristled. Now what?
The man stepped onto the sidewalk, ignoring me, and addressing Corey. “I can’t believe it. I found you. We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“That’s too bad,” Corey said in a dry tone. “You’ve been wasting a lot of time.”
“Wait a second,” the man said. He had dark hair, wore a fitted suit, and there were a couple of indents on his nose like he normally wore glasses but recently took them off. “You haven’t even heard what I’ve come to talk to you about.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Corey said. “Whatever it is, I’m not interested.”
“Do you have a few minutes?” he asked. He gestured to the waiting car. “I think you’ll be interested in what we have to offer. Whatever your current company is paying you, we’ll double it.”
“I’m not really ...”
“Triple. Really, whatever you want. If you just talk to my employers, I’m sure they could work out something.”
What was this? A job offer? Triple his current salary? I thought Corey giving him the cold shoulder meant maybe the job was with the mafia, but the man who was talking to him didn’t look dangerous. The suit looked expensive, and the car was shiny. The person talking to us appeared to be the driver. And his face seemed placid enough. I didn’t get weird killer vibes from him. I had pretty good intuition about people.
“It’s not the money,” Corey said. He drew his shoulders back. “Please, if you don’t mind ...”
The man coughed. “Wenn Sie nicht möchten, dass wir vor Ihrer Freundin darüber sprechen, würde ich mich freuen, mich später mit Ihne
n kurz zu schließen.”
My eyes widened. I wasn’t sure what he said, but the language sounded like German, or close to it. The fact that he felt the need to change languages at all completely changed my perspective of this seemingly innocent deal. What foreign company wanted Corey to work with it? Despite the man’s eagerness, the fact that he wasn’t listening to Corey declining his offer irritated me.
I stepped out of Corey’s shadow. “He said no,” I said. Corey eyeballed me like he didn’t want me to say anything but I held my ground. “Maybe you should find someone else.”
The man tilted his head down at me, the shadows under his eyes darkening, making him look worn. Maybe he really had been searching a long time for Corey. “Who is she?” he asked.
Corey, slowly, threaded his arm around my neck. “My girlfriend,” he said carefully, as if testing it with me.
I allowed this, understanding. I weaved an arm around his waist, hugging him close. “Yeah,” I said.
The man looked at Corey and then at me and then back at Corey. “Like I was saying, if you don’t want to talk about it in front of her ...”
“She can hear anything you have to say,” Corey said. “But I’m telling you, I’m not interested.”
“Maybe I should come back later,” the man said, turning away.
“I wouldn’t waste the time,” Corey said, standing firm. His fingers massaged at my shoulder. I sensed he was telling me it would be okay. I’d been wrong about him before, about him possibly being a yes-man. He was sweet, but he held his ground when he really believed in something.
The man frowned, turned, and went back to his car. He sat in the car for a full couple of minutes, as if waiting for Corey to join him in case he changed his mind. When it was clear Corey wasn’t going to follow, the man turned the car around, driving off into the city.
Corey let out a slow breath. His arm loosened from around my neck. “Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “After all, I did the same thing to you yesterday. Fair’s fair.”
He perked up. “I guess you did.”
“Who was that? He had a job offer?”
He shook his head, his lips tightening in the corners. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“He was going to triple what you make at your job now. You didn’t want to hear about it? I mean, unless he was the mafia. Is there a German mafia?”
His face slowly softened and he grinned down at me. “You know German?”
“Not a word,” I said. “I just recognize the dialect, or the accent, or something. He seemed to assume you did. You know German, don’t you?”
“It’s on my resume,” he said. “I’m not fluent. I don’t get to use it a lot.” His face flinched and he picked out his cell phone from his pocket. I guessed it was on vibrate. “Raven’s looking for you.”
“What? Why?”
