Hot Winter Nights (Heartbreaker Bay #6)(13)

“Feeling better than you were the other night?” Caleb asked Lucas.

“Yeah, man, cuz you were looking pretty out of it,” Eddie said. “That’s probably why that cutie-pie from your office walked you up to bed.” He slid him a sly smile. “She didn’t leave until morning, so I’m guessing it was a good night for you.”

Caleb went brows up and finally gave up the game to stare at Lucas. “Wait—Molly? You spent the night with Molly? You have a death wish or something?”

Or something. “How much for you to never repeat any part of that story?” Lucas said to Eddie, ignoring Caleb for now. He wasn’t worried about Caleb. Caleb knew the value of secrets and kept plenty of his own. But Eddie loved and adored nothing as much as some good gossip.

Proving it, the old man smiled slyly and held out his hand.

Shit. Lucas fished out a twenty.

Eddie just kept smiling.

Lucas added a second twenty.

Eddie’s hand remained out.

So Lucas added a third twenty, and then a fourth.

“That should do it,” Eddie said.

“Sucker,” Caleb said with a shake of his head.





Chapter 5





#DefineNice



Lucas drove to Molly’s place, trying to concentrate on the radio and the Cal football game playing. He’d gone to Cal State Berkley because that’s where the scholarship had been. Also, his dad had gone there; it’s where he’d met Lucas’s mom—who hadn’t been a student but worked at one of the campus cafes. Lucas had never been all that passionate about school, but he was definitely passionate about football. Like his dad, he’d played as a wide receiver for a year, although mostly as a bench warmer, before blowing out his ACL, which had required surgery, but he still loved the game.

But even that love couldn’t keep his mind on the Cal broadcast. Instead he was trying to figure out how best to handle Molly. Keeping anything from her was sheer stupidity, but telling her the truth would only make her go undercover and on her own. He couldn’t risk that, couldn’t risk her.

She lived in Outer Sunset, a district of San Francisco that was the most populated in all of San Francisco. Streets were narrow, buildings old and worn and overfilled, but well cared for.

Her building was no exception. There were eight units, four on the bottom, four on the second floor, which, thanks to the heavy fog, was nearly invisible. Molly lived on the ground floor in one of the units facing the street. Her lights were on, but no one answered his knock. He noted that her neighbor—not one of the elves—was staring at him from behind her curtains with a pinched look on her face, so he sent her what he hoped was a harmless smile and knocked on Molly’s door again.

The door still didn’t open, but Molly’s voice sounded from a hidden speaker. “What do you want?”

“To talk to you.” He looked around and spotted a small camera above her porch light. She never failed to surprise him. “Smart,” he noted. “Now open up.”

“I don’t think so.”

He stared into the camera. “We need to talk.”

“So talk.”

“Not happening while I’m standing on your porch with your non-elf neighbor staring at me with her phone in her hand.”

“That’s just Mrs. Golecky. And she’s probably calling the police because you look like a bad guy in your all-black SWAT gear.”

He thunked his head against the wood of her door.

“I’d hurry and start talking before the cops arrive,” she said.

“You’re really going to make me say it out here?”

Silence.

“Okay,” he said. “Fine. We’ll do this your way, but heads-up, Mrs. Golecky just opened her window so she’s getting all of this.”

More silence. Never let it be said that Molly took her stubbornness lightly.

He blew out a breath and opened his mouth to tell her that he’d partner up with her on the elf case, but that’s not what came out. “I need to know what happened the other night,” he said instead. Because he was an idiot.

The door opened and Molly stood there, brows raised. “You sure you want to hear it? I mean . . . suppose you were really bad. And not the good kind of bad.”

“I was not.” Hell. “Was I?”

“Well, it’s a little hard to remember,” she said. “Since it didn’t take but a minute.”

From behind him and across the hedge bush between their front doors, Mrs. Golecky snorted.

Having had enough, he nudged Molly aside and let himself in.

She was grinning at him as he shut and locked her door and faced her. “Looking pretty pleased with yourself,” he said.

She shrugged. “I’m just surprised you’re being so persistent on this line of questioning given your level of . . . performance.”

“Are you going to keep insulting me or tell me the truth?”

She laughed, and damn, it was a nice sound. “Can’t I do both?” she asked.

He gave a single shake of his head and looked around. Her place was small. Tiny, actually, but neat and warm, filled with comfortable-looking furniture and lots of personal touches like pictures and books and thriving plants.

He’d never kept a plant alive in his life. When he’d been with Carrie, they’d shared a place during the times he hadn’t been undercover. She’d loved plants too and he’d been banned from touching them, claiming his bad attitude killed them dead.