“I’ll explain later,” I say, waving him off. I hold up the box. “Okay, we split bragging rights. But what about this?”
Gabriel shares a look with Sunny, then Julia, in turn.
“You should keep it,” Sunny says to me. “You’re the one who spotted Harvey’s flyer. You told us about the hunt in the first place. You deserve it.”
My ears feel warm. I close my eyes, too nervous to chance making eye contact with Cam. I can still picture the way he somersaulted into my room through the window two years ago. His hair wild and staticky, like he had just touched somethingelectric. How he placedGay Treasuresin my lap like it was a precious gift.
I open my eyes, and the memory of the book transforms into the slim wooden box in my lap now. I trace my finger over one edge, thinking of everything that could be inside.
Sunny leans over my shoulder.
“But maybe at least open the damn treasure chest in front of us,” she says.
“Right,” I say, snapping out of it. “Of course. Right.”
I unlatch the clasp and press my thumbs into either side of the lid. The hinges creak in protest, then seem to exhale as they give way.
The box swings open.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Treasure,” Cam had said.
“Treasure,” I’d echoed dreamily.
“Buriedtreasure.”
“Right.” I laughed. “Buried treasure. Which is somehow different, because…”
“It’s not different, exactly,” Cam said. He shifted in the grass and turned over to look at me, cheek resting on his arm like a pillow. Cam had a way of making even the largest open meadow feel like a tiny rectangle around only the two of us. “But being buried is important.”
“What do you mean?”
He shifted closer.
“I mean that we could be over it right now. We’re not just going out and looking for treasure, V. Looking’s not enough. We have to dig for it. We have to figure out exactly where BGR put it, andthenthe real work comes.”
I squinted at him. “You’re only saying that because I’m incharge of research and you’re in charge of digging. I have the real job. You’re just muscle.”
Cam smiled and flexed the arm under his cheek. My stomach did a small, strange flip.
“Okay,” he said gently.
I had to tilt my head in to hear. “Okay, what?”
“Okay, we’ll see,” Cam said, still smiling. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine. And then we’ll figure out which one was more work.”
I felt his breath, even and light, on my cheek. We weren’t touching, but the grass was warmer next to him, like he was this tiny slice of the sun, and the rest of the meadow knew it.
Our eyes met, and I felt something in me catch.
Buried treasure, I thought.
I wondered how it would feel, once I had this thing solved and the two of us were staring at a plot in the ground. It could be the very plot underneath us. And then it would be Cam’s turn to take over. But how far down would it be buried? How hard would it be to find the actual treasure in the ground?
“Fine,” I said. “I guess we’ll see.”
“Treasure!” Gabriel gasps.
