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“What can I say? I’m not afraid of syrup in a moving vehicle.” She hesitates as I start the engine, studying me from the corners of her eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“Thanks for not fighting me,” she says. “About staying. You need me here with you right now. I can feel it in my bones.”
She’s right. I do need her. And I could need her for a lot longer than right now, if I gave myself the chance.
But I won’t.
I care about her way too much for that.
Chapter Eleven
NORA
By the time Matty parks at the back of the diner’s sparsely occupied lot, Clyde is asleep in my arms. Matty lifts the blanket covering his carrier as I guide the cat gently inside and close the gate.
Once the blanket is back in place, I whisper, “Are you sure you don’t want waffles, too? I can teach you my road waffle ways.”
His lips curve, but the smile doesn’t reach his worried eyes. “No, thanks. A coffee and a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich are fine.” He tries to hand me money, but I wave it away.
“I’ll get it,” I say, backing toward the brightly lit windows. “Text me if you think of anything else you want. I’m going to hit the bathroom first.”
But I don’t hit the bathroom.
I head down the hallway toward the bathrooms, but I don’t turn right through the door leading to the ladies’. Instead, I keep going, pushing through the back door, and circling around a loudly roaring fan pumping the smells of fried potatoes and bacon into the cool air.
It’s raining again, but not nearly as hard as before. When I tiptoe around the side of the building, Matty is still outside the truck, pacing in the tiny gravel with his phone to his ear.
After my initial peek, I flatten myself against the damp vinyl siding, staying out of sight as I strain to hear what’s being said. The fan is too loud for me to have a shot at hearing the person on the other end of the line, but hopefully Matty’s side of the conversation will answer a few of my burning questions. I wouldn’t normally eavesdrop on a friend, but Matty’s strained the bonds of even my easygoing nature.
Easygoing? You’re about as easygoing as a hurricane,the inner voice mutters as I inch closer to the edge of the wall.
I ignore it, focusing on Matty’s voice as he gives a series of numbers to someone on the other end of the line.
I’m nothing like a hurricane. I’m just a little disaster prone. But when I’m not in the midst of a crisis, I’m a very cool, levelheaded person, a fact I prove by holding in my “Ah-ha! I knew it!” cry of victory when it quickly becomes clear my instincts were right all along.
By the time Matty says, “No, my cover’s not blown. I told Nora and my sister that I got in too deep with the Sweetwaters after I had trouble paying off a debt. I can still pull this operation out of the fire, Al, I promise,” I’m convinced he’s a spier, spier, with his pants on fire.
Then, he adds—“I just need a place for Nora and the cat to hide out until I’m able to smooth things over with Rex and Wimpy. Is the safe house in Sandstone still empty?”—and the last of my doubts are washed away in the increasingly heavy drizzle.
No normal person uses words like “cover” “operation” or “safe house” in conversation. That’s spy talk.
Matty’s a spy! Just like Iknewhe was! I’m so ridiculously excited about it, it’s probably unwise.
Matty being a spy doesn’t change things. Not really.
I mean, sure, it makes him about a hundred times sexier—an undercover operative on a mission is way hotter than a bad boy who’s actually in deep with the mob—but things between us still end the same way. Matty sorts this out, hopefully without getting outed as a spy or beaten to a bloody pulp by the Sweetwater thugs, and then he’s on his way out of town. Potentially to handle super-secret spy stuff in South America for all I know.
There’s no future for us, no matter how right it feels to be with him or how easy the conversation flows between us when he’s not being vague and secretive.
I should abandon hope of anything more than friendship between us, but a part of me—the same part that isn’t afraid to juggle maple syrup and a waffle in a moving vehicle—insists this isn’t the time to give up. This is the time to gather my forces, engage in some creative problem-solving, and, at the very least, make sure Matty doesn’t ride off into the sunset without a few steamy memories of me to take with him.
I’m not normally such a sex fiend, but Matty has always been able to make my blood fizz with just a look. And now that I know he’s a secret agent and defender of the realm?
Well, now, I’ll be lucky if I can make it to that safe house before my panties melt clean off.
Tiptoeing back inside, I place our to-go order at the register before dashing into the bathroom to wipe the rain from my hair. When I emerge, Matty’s sitting in one of the chairs against the wall where people wait for a booth, scrolling through his phone.
