“You can.”
I blinked.“I can?”
His mouth twitched.“You thought I was gonna say no?”
“I thought you were going to tell Twister.”
“I still might.”
“Wheels.”
He leaned back slightly.“Not because I think you’re wrong.Because if you text her, we do it smart.No details.Nothing that panics her.Nothing that gives anyone anything if your phone is being watched.”
I stared at him.“You think my phone is being watched?”
“I think The Ledger got into your apartment, left notes here, and shot at us.Among other things.”His voice stayed calm.“So yeah, babe.I’m assuming everything is watched until we know it’s not.”
The warmth of the morning thinned a little.
I nodded.“Okay.”
He squeezed my knee.“Not now.Finish your coffee.Breathe for a minute.”
I looked down at my mug.My coffee had gone lukewarm, and I drank it anyway.
Wheels sat beside me in the ugly alley behind the clubhouse, one hand on my knee and his eyes still scanning the world around us.
And for the first time since all of this started, telling someone about Novalea didn’t make me feel weaker.It made me feel less alone.
Chapter Nineteen
Goldie
The basement stretched beneath the entire clubhouse, dimly lit by fluorescent lights that hummed overhead.Support columns marched through the middle of the room every twelve feet, and concrete walls enclosed everything on four sides.
Wheels leaned against the old workbench with a mug of coffee balanced in one hand, and he watched me instead of trying to help.
I liked that.
I spread the largest blueprint across the workbench, and Wheels stepped over and set his coffee well away from the paper.
“Need anything?”
I shook my head.“Just your handsome face standing over there.”
One corner of his mouth lifted.“I can do that.”
“I know.”
He walked back to his spot without another word.
I smiled to myself and appreciated that the man understood that silence wasn’t uncomfortable.It was useful.
Today I was going to figure out this damn blueprint and why it all was right, but it really wasn’t.
I measured the longest wall.Forty-eight feet.Compared it to the drawing.Forty-eight feet.Correct.
The next wall.Thirty-two feet.Correct again.
