Eyes narrowed across from me, and I tried to hide the smugness I felt. He was the one with the great idea of this bet. Maybe he’d call the whole thing off.
My stomach flipped. Okay, weird reaction. I did want him to call it off, didn’t I?
He stood, palms flat on the table’s surface. “Sunday morning, seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up.” He turned to head back to the stage.
“Wait—where are we going?”
Shoulders rose and fell, but he kept walking. “Hakuna matata” floated back to me.
No worries.My fingers touched my lips as I chuckled. Just how was Tate going to take us on an African safari in the middle of a temperate rain forest? I shook my head. Bluffing. He had to be bluffing.
Three
A knock sounded on my door at 6:55 Sunday morning. I opened it, Tate on the other side with a thermos in his hand.
“Ready?”
I took the stainless-steel travel mug and tilted its contents into my mouth. French vanilla. It would do.
Tate’s face screwed up tight. “Yeah, sure. You can have a drink of my coffee. Thanks for asking.”
I closed the door behind me and locked it, then stepped past him toward the stairs. “You make me leave my house before seven in the morning on a weekend, you pay the price.” I took another long draw. “And the price is caffeine. Should have thought of that, Sherlock.”
His laughter filled the stairwell. “Noted. And I thought Cumberbatch didn’t have anything to worry about.”
“He doesn’t.” One last drink before I handed the thermos back to him. My mom had taught me to share, after all. “So where are we going? What are we doing? Who else did you wrangle into this scheme?”
“You’ll see.”
He opened the door, and we stepped out into the morning sunshine. A hand to my back propelled me to a silver minivan parked by the curb.
I eyed him and then the soccer-mom car. “Sweet ride.”
The side door automatically slid open as I stepped closer. A woman I’d never met before smiled at me from behind the wheel. A man sat in the passenger’s seat. Another man and woman grinned from the back, leaving the two captain’s chairs in the middle empty. Ducking, I stepped into the van and sat in the middle, tucking an unruly curl, which had escaped its ponytail, behind my ear.
“Good morning,” I said.
Tate climbed in, and the door automatically slid shut behind him. “Everyone, this is Emory. Emory, this is Carla and her husband, Jim.”
The two in the front waved.
“And behind us, Landon and Sydney.”
Who were these people? Yes, I now knew their names, but I’d never seen them before. I’d already said good morning. Should I say something else?Whatelse? Grabbing my book would be beyond rude, but my skin was beginning to itch as the silence took on a personality of a wool sweater.
“Carla and Jim actually live in our building.”
Tate rescued me, and I felt myself exhale.
“Oh?” It wasn’t worthy of an Oscar, but at least I’d gotten a word out, and the inflection on the end posed it as a question. Therefore I was off the conversational hook for the moment.
“Yeah, we live on the second floor. Two kids, five and seven. Maybe you’ve seen them playing around? Or at least I’m sure you’ve heard them. They aren’t exactly quiet.” Jim smiled at Carla as he said it.
I shook my head. Outside of Tate, I didn’t really know anyone in the building.
“Anyway, they’re staying with their grandparents in Tacoma for the weekend. They’re going to flip when they find out where we’re going.”
My gaze zeroed in on Tate. No matter how many texts I’d sent him, he hadn’t told me our destination for the day. “Just where are we going?” My eyes flicked to Jim.
