Page 37 of Joey

“Yes, Allen,” Joey says, then smiles at me, a little hint of shyness in his expression. “At least that’s my plan.” Then he takes my hand and gives it a squeeze.

I smile at Joey and Jesus. My heart beats kinda fast at that little gesture. Joey Boston is a very nice-looking man. So are his friends. Even though Wald’s real name is Waldo and that’s just all kinds of wrong, he’s a hot dude. He’s got the tech skills to go with that name, but he’s got all the hot guy optics too.

And Wald has been looking at me weird. Not funny weird, or even suspicious weird.

But sexy weird.

His attention kinda made me shy when I noticed it. And that’s quite an accomplishment. I’m not really a shy girl. I’m not really that outgoing girl I told them I was during the interview. But I don’t scare easy. I’ve been through too much to scare easily.

And Huck. Don’t get me started. Clearly his parents had an image in mind when they came up with that name. He looks like a Huck. And he was all kinds of hands-y every time I got near him. Touching my arm, or leaning in close to say things.

And Joey. Definitely the most mysterious of the three. He kept his distance until just right now when he reached for my hand. But I could feel his stare even when my back was turned.

I have their attention and they’ve certainly got mine too.

This whole experience promises to be very interesting, to say the least.

But I need to be careful. Because even though I asked for friendship as payment and they agreed, that’s not how you make real friends.

Real friends require a lot more than fake memories. It’s a whole bunch of shared experiences, and stress, and ups and downs.

And we don’t have any of that. So they can tell me we’ll be friends all they want.

I’m not ready to believe it.

“Well, this is what we’re looking at today,” Allen says, then pans his hand at a large stone house situated on the side of a hill. There’s a lot of greenery in the front yard. Hedges, and perfectly manicured topiaries, and flower beds, and ivy climbing up old thick-trunked trees.

There’s a stone wall surrounding the property, about four feet high with a wrought-iron fence on top that brings the total height to over seven feet.

“I like the gate,” Joey says. “And the wall. I can see Maisy playing here. It’s like a kid’s front-yard fantasy. And it’s safe.” Then he looks at me. “But do you think it feels like a prison?”

I look at Joey, all concerned about his little girl feeling trapped inside this beautiful garden vision. “I love it,” I say. “What child would not want to grow up here? But let’s look inside.”

“Oh, there’s a lot to see here,” Allen says. “And it’s vacated. The current owners had to move on. It’s been on the market for a while.”

“Why?” I ask.

“The price,” Allen says, shrugging. “Not many people in the market for a seven-million-dollar house.”

“Holy—”

“Stop it,” Joey says, squeezing my hand. “We don’t care about price.”

And hell. OK, Joey Boston. I knew you had money, but damn.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go look.”

We walk to the front, Allen punches in a code, and the decorative wrought-iron gate begins to slide open.

“Fancy,” I say as we walk up the steep driveway.

“Very fancy, Miss Alder. But practical too. And, as you can see, Mr. Boston, there is no way to mistake this front yard for a prison.”

He’s right. You can’t see it from the street, but the whole front yard has been landscaped with wide, green-lawn terraces. And the stone retaining walls match the house and the wall surrounding the property.

It sort of feels like a castle. Fit for a princess, I silently muse.

“There’s a little maze that winds up and down the terraces,” Allen says. “It’s nothing to us grown-ups, but I can imagine a child getting lost in all these shrubs, and hedges, and fruit trees.”