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CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
Slade
“Iknew we should never have let her get involved in the first place,” Logan growled, his knuckles white where he was gripping the steering wheel. “Going in there on her own like that—so fucking stupid. Reckless and stupid.”
The engine roared as he hurtled through the streets, cutting off other cars and speeding through stoplights that were seconds from turning red. If I hadn’t been in the car with him during similar high-speed drives, I’d have been clutching the handle for dear life. As it was, my pulse thumped heavily with a combination of anxiety and my own frustration.
Still, I felt the need to defend Maddie. Logan obviously didn’t have the most unbiased view of her behavior even at the best of times.
“We’ve done plenty of things that were even more stupid than this,” I pointed out. “How many situations have we walked into that we knew for sure were dangerous?”
“We weren’t even certain that this bar had any criminal affiliations at all,” Dexter put in from the back seat.
“It doesn’t matter,” Logan snapped. “I told her everything we do could be dangerous. She’s seen the kind of people we’ve run into investigating the theft. Does she have a death wish or something?”
I suspected the people most likely to die in this scenario were anyone who got in between Logan and Maddie, whatever we had to do to drag her out of the place. He was so worked up a vein was bulging at his temple. I wasn’t sure I’deverseen him this pissed off.
How much of it was because of Maddie defying him, and how much because he was worried about her safety just like I was? He could deny he had any interest in her all he wanted, but he clearly cared, one way or another.
“You kept trying to convince her that she couldn’t handle running around with us at all,” I said, keeping my tone light. “Apparently that only made her more determined to prove herself. Maybe that’s a hint that you should change your tactics.”
Logan’s next growl was a wordless sound of fury. I decided I’d better drop the subject there.
Besides, my insides were so tangled up with tension that it was hard to keep the breezy tone I’d been going for. It’d already been twenty minutes since Dexter had gotten the text and alerted us. Even at the speed Logan was driving, the bar was at least another ten minutes away. What if the people Maddie had been worried about had caught her? What would they do to her if they did?
It was hard to know how worried I needed to be, but she’d mentioned they had guns. It didn’t sound like they were just regular bar staff having a casual pre-opening chat.
“Have you heard anything else from her?” I couldn’t help asking, glancing back at Dexter.
He shook his head, his mouth tight. Even he was worried from his intensely practical perspective. Shit.
“It’s better that she doesn’t do anything else that could draw attention to her presence,” he said, but that fact didn’t give me much comfort.
A weird twinge of what I had to admit was jealousy rippled through my panic. Maddie had my number too. I hadn’t seen her talking to Dexter other than brief discussions about the case. Why had she reached out to him for help instead of me?
Maybe she hadn’t figured I’d be as reliable as him? I didn’t exactly present myself as Mr. Responsibility.
But I wanted to be that kind of guy for her. The more time we spent together, the more I couldn’t wait to see her again. And she’d shown when we were making out in the house the other day that she saw me as more than a meaningless good time. How many girls had looked at me as more than a brief, fun fling, not caring whether I was at all invested in them?
I had to prove that I was worth that kind of consideration. Worthy of being someone she “actually liked” and didn’t just want to goof around with. I should be a guy she could turn to at least as much as she could trust Dexter with that role.
But I’d never been that guy for anyone before. I wasn’t totally sure how to be. Fuck.
I guessed getting her out of this jam would be a good step in the right direction, anyway. If we could pull that off.
I squinted at the road ahead. My foot tapped restlessly against the floor. I popped one of my cinnamon candies into my mouth for something to do and immediately regretted it. It reminded me of kissing Maddie… and when Logan threw the car around a corner, I almost choked on it.
“It doesn’t make sense that she’d go off and do this right now, though.” I frowned. “We let her be totally involved when we broke into the house. She seemed satisfied with that, and we’d already looped her in on the trip to the bar tonight. Why would she suddenly decide that she had to get in there early when nothing changed?”
Dexter hummed in the back seat. “It is strange, and not consistent with how she’s acted so far. But maybe something did happen that we don’t know about that made her feel the situation was more urgent?”
“Or maybe she’s a clueless ditz who makes idiotic decisions,” Logan snarled, but he didn’t sound as emphatic about that suggestion as in his earlier complaints.
I glanced at him, one eyebrow rising as suspicion gripped me. “Didyoutalk to her earlier today? Did you get all grouchy about her being involved again? That could have set her off.”
“I didn’t say anything to her about the investigation,” Logan shot back. “I sure as hell didn’t give any impression that going into the bar early was a good idea.”
I could read into what he didn’t say well enough, especially with the tick of his jaw before he clenched it. “But you did talk to her. For fuck’s sake. Whatdidyou say?”
