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“They went by but she wasn’t home. It looked abandoned, actually. She might have moved recently. She never updated her driver’s license and I don’t see any change of address forms with the post office.”
Hacking the post office and the DMV? Amazing. “Can’t you trace her to her new home? Like her cell phone? Or her IP when she uses Facebook.”
“I might, but Marc’s asking around about her. The landlord of her old place said he didn’t know she’d moved until she was gone. Didn’t pay her last rent payment.”
“Couldn’t afford it?”
“Not sure.” He paused for a moment. “Kayli?”
“Yeah?”
He was quiet again. “Be careful, okay?”
Aw. Sweet. I smothered a grunt at my heart fluttering like a crushing teenager. “You, too.”
I hung up and didn’t have to wait long before the black SUV pulled up in front of the curb. I ran for it, opening the door and hopping in.
Axel had stripped off the olive drab, and had on a black tank shirt he was wearing underneath. The change in wardrobe left me with a view of his sculpted biceps and broad shoulders. The tight shirt framed his abs, too.
I sat back and focused hard out the window. My emotions were out of control. Thinking of how close we’d been before pressed together under the bed and sharing such an event together kept every nerve inside me vibrating with life.
“I think I managed to get out without them noticing what car we’re driving,” he said. He started away from the shopping center and made a circle around the neighborhood.
“Corey called,” I said and relayed what Corey had told me.
He frowned. “I don’t like not knowing where the mother is living.”
“Should we go and help?”
“We’ll wait for Marc to finish.” He drove quietly for a moment. “You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“When did you last eat?”
“This morning.”
“No lunch?”
“We had Mrs. Gunther’s pie for lunch. Besides, we need to figure out what to do next.”
“Family first. We’ll go eat.”
I did a small eye roll. Family? Like the mafia? That crushed my flirting thoughts and forced me to focus.
I had a small pang of guilt about Wil, too, because he really was my family and I’d left to go traipse with a bunch of Academy guys in Florida instead of pounding on all of Charleston’s doors to find him.
Ten minutes later, Axel pulled into the hotel. “I think we’re the first ones back,” he said as he hopped out.
I jumped out before he could open my door. I closed it and he waited for me on the sidewalk. “What do we do now?”
He pointed at a restaurant across the street. “Do you like seafood?”
I nodded. I would eat anything at this point. It had been a long day.
We walked together toward the restaurant. My lips stayed glued shut, unable to come up with something to talk to him about.
He seemed at ease with the silence.
It was a nice evening. The lamp lights were bright and inviting. There was just the slight bit of chill in the October air. It tasted fresh with a layer of salt on the breeze.
When we got to the street, Axel placed his palm at the small of my back as we crossed.
I folded my arms across my stomach, conflicted about the touch. I focused on the scenery, the cars and buildings, trying to avoid looking at him, because when I did, I was staring at his exquisite features and it became difficult to contain my excitement.
After we got to the other side of the street, he kept his hand at my back as we approached the restaurant. My heart started thundering. I forced my breath to slow.
I looked up at him.
He was focused ahead; his face unreadable to me. Stoic.
He released me when we got close to the doors and moved ahead, opening it for me.
I walked in and from that point, he only stood beside me, not reaching for me again.
I hated that I was disappointed. What was wrong with me?
It was a casual restaurant without too many other customers inside. We were directed to a bench table near the wall, and given menus as we sat.
Axel looked over the menu briefly and then put it down. “Do you like tuna?”
“I like deep fried,” I said. “I’m thinking shrimp and fries and hush puppies.” Now that we were in the restaurant, my stomach was growling.
When the waitress returned, she brought a basket of biscuits. I started eating them and Axel ordered the tuna for himself and my order for me.
“What do you want to drink?” he asked me.
“Water,” I said. I really didn’t care. I wanted food, not something to drink.
He looked at me a moment and then back at the waitress. “Water for now, but with our meals, could you bring us a Pinot Noir?”
“I need ID,” she said.
Axel fished out his wallet, and showed it to her. She glanced at it without too much fanfare and gave it back. “I’ll put your order in.”
Did she not need my ID, too? Maybe she just assumed. “So you’re twenty-one?” I asked with a bite of biscuit still in my mouth. I knew he was slightly older, but didn’t know how much.
“Twenty-two,” he said. He put his elbows on the table and leaned in. “And you’re twenty-one.” He emphasized with his eyes.
“I’m not drinking,” I said. Legal or not, I wasn’t interested.
“It’ll be great with the shrimp,” he said.
“I don’t drink.”
He tilted his head. “Why?”
I sighed, putting down the biscuit for a minute. “I’ve had a few sips before, but when my dad started drinking, I told myself I wouldn’t end up like that.”
“You aren’t your father,” he said.
I shrugged, looking away. I still didn’t like the idea. I feared I’d become addicted or something. With my luck, I’d end up just like him, a grumpy ass that lied to his kids just to buy more booze.
Axel reached out slowly, picking up my wrist and holding it. “Look at me.”
I stared at the table. My knee-jerk reaction was to listen to him but I resisted, wanting him to know he couldn’t control me like I was a remote that he had access to.
“Kayli,” he said, the severity growing.
I sucked in a breath and looked up.
His dark eyes met mine and held. His thumb traced over the back of my hand. “Don’t let fear tell you how to live your life. If you won’t drink because you’re afraid you’ll become like your father, that’s the wrong reason to not try something. It’s letting your father control your actions instead of you making a decision for yourself.”
I had to agree. “You’re saying I should?”
“I’m saying if you don’t want to, it should be your decision, not fear making the choice for you.”
I sighed and then shrugged. “I may try a sip.”
His thumb traced over my wrist again. I looked down at how he held on to me, and kept my arm limp, still.
My heart was beating a mile a minute. Was he showing interest? Should I encourage it?
The fact that I felt I should get closer to Axel to discover Academy secrets felt like the dirtiest thing I’d ever thought to do. I’d sworn to myself before that I’d never sell myself to get what I needed. I never thought once to become a prostitute or to pick up a boyfriend just because
he had money or a car or something I wanted. I don’t know how I validated distracting them for stealing wallets, but somehow it felt different. It was only a little bit, and I wasn’t selling my body.
I thought of Wil. I thought of the things Blake had shown me. Still, it wasn’t enough.
However, Axel’s intent expression, his gentle touch at my wrist, had me captivated. He was solid authority, handsome, and most of the time distant to the point that I became curious. Here he was, showing interest; I just wasn’t sure if it was trying to be encouraging or something more.
I was tempted enough to want to find out. “Axel?”
“Hm?”
Words tripped over my tongue as I tried to find the right girly way to ask a boy if he liked me without asking directly. I thought of the kiss. “Back at Fred’s apartment…”
“When you asked me about being in jail?” he asked.
I pressed my lips together and met his eyes. It wasn’t what I was thinking, but it was a good way to find out what I wanted to know; I’d take it.
“I’ve never been perfect,” he said. “No one is.”
“I don’t mean to pry.” I so totally did.
The corner of his mouth drifted up into a smirk. “I want to know where you learned pickpocketing.”
“Tell me how you ended up in jail.”
“I’ll share if you will.”
I nodded. How I’d learned didn’t bug me now. That I had been stealing was the worst thing about me, and since he was okay with that, the details didn’t matter. Maybe it was that I knew he’d done other things, worse things, or at least had been accused of them, that I felt like an innocent compared to what he’d done. “I started in high school.”
“On your own?”
I pursed my lips for a moment. “Well, sort of. There was a guy I caught doing it once. I’d left my book bag in a spot near where others had left theirs. I caught him pawing through my bag. When I confronted him, he tried to say he thought it was his.”
“Was he looking for money?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t have any. He’d have been lucky to find a pencil. But after, I started watching him. I confronted him again when I found him breaking into the lockers in school.”
