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I already know what happened. Think of something. Wait, they couldn’t have gone there, the elevator switched too quickly. Is she testing me?
“Remind me later on this week to show you my suite. The contractor messaged earlier that he was done and the decorator was almost finished,” I said, hoping they would accept that lie. “I’m looking forward to seeing what she did with the place. Did it look good?”
Asher, I hope your decorator didn’t re-do the place in your tacky taste, or I’m toast.
I paused, waiting for some kind of reaction. Gunner excused himself, but Imogen walked slowly over to the glass hutch.
“I’m just teasing you. We didn’t really go to the other penthouse,” she said. “Are all of these trophies yours?”
“No, my brother has a few in there. He thinks they belong together,” I laughed. “Really, I just think he doesn’t want them in his way.”
“So which ones are yours? There are no names on them,” she said, still looking in the hutch not realizing I could see her face in the back mirror.” “Some of these say lacrosse, others say hockey.”
“We did both, that’s why there are multiple trophies for the same year.” I lied, hoping she would just accept that answer. “That’s all old news, I thought we were going for that competitive walk.”
Imogen turned to look at me. She waved a bag from the store at me, then lifted out a pair of sneakers with flowers all over them and a bright blue sweat suit.
“These are not my style, but they’ll have to do.” She now smiled ear to ear. “You’re being coy about which trophies are yours, but it doesn’t matter because I’m going to out-walk you either way.”
There we go. She bought it.
“Give me five minutes to change into these and hunt down Gunner. He’s going to be our referee in case you cheat,” she called back to me walking down the hall. “You better get stretched out.”
I don’t cheat! I guess I’m a liar now but I definitely don’t cheat.
Chapter 35
IMOGEN
“Bond, you don’t like the sweat suit I got you?” I asked a grumpy Gunner on the ride down the elevator. “Or is it something else?”
“I’m a retired navy seal, what do you think?” Gunner grumped. “You’re lucky I like you kid, but next time at least get me black. If any of my buddies were to see me in this red, I’d be teased endlessly.”
“I promise we won’t make you wear anything you don’t want to after today,” Asher said. “If I’d known that was happening, I would have stopped it.”
“You two are going to gang up on me now?” I put on my best fake pout.
We all had a good laugh and were still laughing when the doors opened to the lobby.
“Mr. Hawthorne, will you be needing dining reservations, or are you staying in?” Halima asked as we passed by her desk.
“I don’t know. Imogen, what do you want to do?” Asher stopped to answer Halima.
“How about the winner of this competition decides if we go out or eat in?” I suggested. “I mean, we need the winner to win something, right?”
“Love that idea,” he said. “Halima, we’ll have to let you know.”
It was almost dusk when we made it out front and it was definitely starting to get chilly. Neither of us had a path in mind so we had Gunner make us pick a number one to ten. Asher got the number closest to seven, so we started out to our right.
“You two go ahead, I’m not part of this competition,” Gunner said, following behind us at a decent pace. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
Asher set the timer on his watch and we both picked up speed. There were a lot of people out strolling, so we had to weave in and out. Each time we raced to catch up with one another. By the time we reached the end of the street we were both breathing hard. So much for being ex- athletes.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m tired already,” Asher said between deep breaths. “I see the La Reserve Hotel up ahead. I’ll race you to the top step for the win.”
I yelled back to Gunner that we were going to pick up speed then turned and took off.
“I forgot to say, ‘you’re on’,” I said a few feet ahead of him.
