Page 48 of The Best Shot

I crouched by the door and studied the old hardware. Standard deadbolt, sturdy but easy enough to replace. The one she’d bought was better, longer throw, harder to pick. A smart choice.

The job took twenty minutes, maybe less. I pulled the old one, set the new, and lined everything up until it sat right. Then I stood and handed her the keys. “Try it.”

She worked the key back and forth, then tested the handle. Everything held the way it was supposed to.

“What do I owe you?”

“We’re not doing that.”

“Hale—”

“We’re friends, Yaz. Let me act like it.”

Friends.

That word felt like a wedge between us, but I was the one who’d brought it up this time.

I should’ve left.

She should’ve let me.

Instead we stood there in her entryway with new locks and too much unsaid between us. Her phone buzzed on the counter, mine stayed in my pocket, and neither of us moved.

“Yasmine.”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on. But if you need something…” I made myself say the rest. “I’m not just here for your dry spells. You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said, so softly it was barely a breath.

I stepped back first. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Thank you.”

The lock clicked behind me.

And for the first time since that bathroom, I wasn’t thinking about getting her back into my bed.

I was thinking about the lock, and who she expected might test it.

14

“DO YOU WANT HIM TO CATCH US?”

YASMINE

Ididn’t know how this kept happening to me.

And no, that wasn’t rhetorical. I would’ve loved an answer.

Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Ava had announced that Grant had some company thing she had to attend and, in her absence, she expected us to conduct light surveillance on Hale’s movie date.

I had said no.

Very clearly.

So how in the hell had I ended up sunk into a theater seat with a laminated menu that smelled like old popcorn butter?