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“Sorry,” I answer automatically. “I guess I’m… nervous?”
“You know you’re safe here, right?”
“Of course.” I cringe at the sound of my own voice, giving him a sad smile before he stands up and holds his hand out to me.
I frown at it before looking back up at him, trying to see what he’s saying in his eyes. “I want to show you something.”
“O-okay.”
“I want you to know me: to know who I am and what I do.”
I place my hand in his, letting him help me up before he stands in the middle of the room and crouches down. I tilt my head to the side when he hovers his hand above the wooden floor before he looks back up at me.
“I’ve never shown anyone this… Not even the guys here.”
“Then why—”
“Because I want to share something with you. I want us to be open with each other. No secrets.” He mimics what I said at the end of our first date, his eyes shining and his lips lifted into a soft smile.
He places his hand on the floor and a couple of seconds later, something clicks and then a part of the floor is moving, exposing a steel panel that starts moving in the opposite direction.
“I know that you’re aware I work with computers here.” I nod in reply. “But I do so much more than that. The car I drive? I built it, making my own gadgets to put inside and outside. It’s what I do. I adapt things, I make things.”
“What kind of things?” I ask, completely captivated by what he’s saying.
“The kind of things that you can’t buy from the store. Listening devices, weapons, specialized gadgets for gaining footage… everything you could possibly think of that helps on our jobs.”
He dips his leg inside the hole that is now in his floor, lights switching on as he leads me down the stairs.
My eyes widen when the door closes above me and I gasp, causing Evan to give my hand a light squeeze.
My gaze flits around when we make it to the bottom, seeing all of the weapons that line the walls and the computer that sits at the end of the room.
I was wrong. This isn’t a small place, this is huge, maybe three times the size of the cabin above us.
“What is this place?” I ask, slowly letting go of his hand as I walk toward what looks like a huge gun, but not really a gun, at least, not any that I have seen before.
My hand reaches out, brushing along the black metal casing before feeling him come up behind me, his chest against my back.
“RPG,” he whispers, encasing my hand with his as he pulls it across the circular metal. “Rocket-propelled grenade. You hold it over your shoulder and aim… then it does exactly what it says on the tin: launches rockets.” His breath skates across my neck, making me shiver as his hand guides mine over the handle and to the end. “This is where the rocket comes out.” His voice is so smooth, you wouldn’t think he was talking about a weapon.
“Have you ever used one?” I ask, my voice a mere whisper as he steps impossibly closer, his other hand curving around my waist and splaying across my stomach.
“I have.”
I close my eyes as his hand grips me tighter, pulling my back even more into his chest as his other hand still encasing mine on the rocket launcher lets go. He twirls me around, my chest heaving and hitting off his bare chest as I stare up at him. A fire burns behind his eyes making the gold flecks that much more golden.
“I’ve never brought anyone down here. It’s my safe place.”
I can hear his meaning loud and clear: I’m different, at least to him I am anyway.
He’s shared a piece of himself with me; not because I asked or because I wanted him to, but because he wanted to.
I let my hand float up and over his arm, resting it on his shoulder as I close my eyes, preparing to share something with him too.
Watching as the expression on her face turns from relaxed to apprehensive has my stomach lurching. Her eyelashes flutter on the top of her cheeks before they open, her hazel eyes connecting with mine, showing me all of the pain that she’s feeling.
“You know I went to prison,” she whispers. “I know I deserved it…”
