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“That’s good,” he replied, but I couldn’t tell if he fully believed me. His expression was unreadable. “Why, exactly, are you about to shatter your window?”
“My keys.” The confusion didn’t clear from his gaze. “They’re inside.” And then I added, with a gesture at the car, “It’s locked.”
Good grief, Stella, where’s that flirty attitude from last weekend?Apparently it’d gotten locked in the car along with my keys.
Harry eyed the cement piece. “Seems a bit extreme. Why not call someone to bring a spare set?”
“Can’t.”Get a grip, Destelle.
After another second of silence, the tension left from his mouth. “One sec,” he said after a moment, taking a backward step. He pointed a finger at the cement in my hand. “You should put that down.”
“Notthrough the car window,” I said for clarification, my voice finally gaining some of its life back.
It caused Harry to smile. “Definitely not.”
I tossed the cement block back where I’d picked it up from, watching as a few chunks broke off. Harry disappeared only for a moment, and when he came back, he had a long paper-thin metal object in his hand. “Is that a slim jim?” I asked in disbelief, staring at where the bottom curved. “Like, to break into cars?” I’d seen enough action movies to recognize it, but I almost couldn’t believe they existed in real life.
“It is,” he said, twirling it in his grip. “I had one in my trunk.”
“Should I be concerned why you have one?”
“When I’m not singing in cafés, I’m breaking into cars.” He winked at me, stepping to the driver’s side door of my SUV. Before doing whatever he needed to do with it—because I seriously had no idea how a slim jim worked—he looked over his shoulder at me, face almost redder. Apparently he had a hard time being properly flirty too. “That was definitely a joke. I got locked out of my car once and bought one to get back in.”
“That makes me feel better.”
He slipped the slim jim into the door, maneuvering the metal expertly. As I watched him, two feelings bubbled up inside me. Apprehension—it wasreallyweird that he knew how to do this so easily.
And attraction—watching him break into my car was weirdly hot. Especially since I’d been moments away from shattering the window like a caveman.
My knight with a shining slim jim. My parents would be proud.
A softpopfilled the air, and Harry carefully extracted the metal. With a grand gesture, he opened the driver’s side door. “That looked way too easy,” I decided, narrowing my eyes at him.
“It’s more complicated than it looks.” Harry pressed theunlockbutton, and all the locks in the car popped. “It helps that you have an older car model. If it had automatic locks, those are so much harder to get into.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I had to do some internet research to learn how to do it,” he told me with a laugh, one just as beautiful and rumbly as it’d been a few moments ago over the microphone. I really wanted him to do it again. “This better be your car, or else you made me an accomplice to auto burglary.”
“Technically, it was all you.” My lips finally curved into a smile, probably because the threat of getting in trouble had evaporated. After opening the back seat door, I snatched my keys with relief. “I seriously owe you one.”
Harry leaned against the open car door, his eyes tracing mine. Even in the night’s darkness, they were so vibrant. And even though the collar of his jean jacket turned up against his neck, I could see the tattoo at his throat, the inky lines like shadows against his skin. “Maybe in exchange for breaking into your car, you can tell me why you ditched me last Saturday?”
He cares!I had to squash down the Destelle level of excitement, trying to play it off. “More interesting plans came up.”
“Ouch.” But he smiled. “No interesting plans tonight though, huh?”
“Not tonight.” Even though I started to shiver from the cold, no way was I getting in the car. Not yet. “And besides, I’m not in the habit of fighting for a guy’s attention. When I came back, you looked well occupied.”
Understanding flitted across his features. “Those girls did ask me to dance,” he admitted, “but I told them I was waiting for a dark-haired beauty to come back and sweep me off my feet.”
I nearly chuckled, ready to fire back a flirty response, but a different dark-haired beauty popped into my mind’s eye. “You mean your girlfriend?”
He raised an eyebrow. “My girlfriend?”
“I’m just saying, when she finds out you go to nightclubs to dance with random girls, she’ll be pissed.”
Amusement swallowed his features whole then. “I don’t have a girlfriend. You think I’d dance with you like that last weekend if I did?”
