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“Anyway, Dare’s probably going to come find me, so we need to circle back to you texting him one last time.”
“I didn’t text him. I sent him a message on Instagram.”
I snort. “You slipped into his DMs?”
“Stop,” she says, and I can imagine her hiding her pretty face with embarrassment. “It felt important at the time!”
I laugh, tipping my head back and looking at the dark sky. Raindrops hit my face, but I don’t care. I feel happy. “I’m just teasing you. But be careful about what he gets you to say. Beware of the possibility that he’s trying to get an incriminating screenshot or something like that. Don’t let him trap you.”
“Eh, he’s tried before. It hasn’t worked yet. I think I’m getting pretty adept at evading his landmines.”
Her confidence makes me smile, but my heart flutters with nerves.
I hate that sticking by me puts her in danger, but I love so much that she keeps showing up for me.
An answering promise itches to claw its way out of my throat. It feels terrifying when I know how precarious our circumstances are and what we’re up against, but I know how I feel, and I want her to know I’ll keep showing up for her, too.
Emboldened, I say, “I’m not letting you go, Hannah.” The floor beneath my heart gives a little, so before she has a chance to respond, I rush to lighten the mood. “And if I tell him I’m still not ditching you after he’s made you fall hopelessly in love with him, he’s going to besopissed.”
“And Dare’s good moodisone of my highest priorities,” she teases.
I grin so big, my face hurts, and a happy sigh slips out of me. “I’ve missed talking to you.”
“I’ve missed talking to you, too.”
“I wish he didn’t make it so difficult.”
“Itwouldbe nice if he lifted the Hannah ban,” she agrees.
“The Hannah ban is terrible. I’m going to write my congressman about it.”
Hannah laughs, and the sound makes me smile. “I have a hunch Dare wouldn’t feel compelled to obey an act of Congress.”
“Probably not. He’d just drug us and move us to the sovereign island nation he bought in secret so he could punish us both as he saw fit to.”
“Then he really would be King Dare. I guess we’re coming full circle.”
I can’t help smiling at the mental image of the pretend prison island I’ve envisioned more times than I care to admit. Only this time, I’m not alone. “I know I’m getting locked up in a tower, but I don’t know what he’s going to do to you.”
“Lock me in a cage and dangle it over his pet piranhas,” she suggests.
“I would never let you be fish food.”
“And he knows that, which is why he’d use the threat of harm to bend you to his will. ‘Oh, you want Hannah to have dinner tonight? Then I guess you’d better put on this dress and have dinner withmefirst.’”
I try and fail to bite back a laugh. “I know it’s dastardly, but you’ve gotta admire the effort he’s putting into wooing a woman he has already technically locked down.”
“I’m clapping from my piranha cage. So impressed.”
I giggle at her playful disdain, but unfortunately, before I can go back down the path of imagination with Hannah—inmyworld this time instead of hers—a matte black car rolls to a stop at the mouth of the alley, and my amusement fades.
He’s here.
“Hey, Hannah. I’ve gotta go.”
“Okay. Be safe. I’ll talk to you later.”
“You too.”
