case we need to make a speedy getaway,” he explains, throwing the license plate in the back seat.
The sheet of cardboard, I discover, is for the top of the fence. I watch as he slings it into the air, draping it over the pokey bits up top.
“You’ll climb up first,” he whispers, watching me put on the gloves. “When you get to the top, just straddle it and wait for me.” I nod, but he still asks, “You good?”
Instead of answering, I grab onto the fence and test it, wedging the toe of my shoe into a knee-high diamond. My good leg lifts me up easily, and I can feel him at my back—‘spotting’ me, Emory would call it. My other foot slots into a space that’s only a couple diamonds above the first one, and I think I can see the pattern I need to take—the unevenness of it.
When I pull my good foot from the diamond, nothing but my hands and bad foot holding me up, Reyn’s whisper catches my attention.
“Hey, I’m not trying to cop a feel, okay?” Before I can ask what that means, one of his hands is on my ass, holding me up, steadying my quivering leg.
My face blooms into a fierce heat.
I get my foot into another knee-high slot and do it all over again, and this is fine. A little precarious, but fine. I’m doing it. And in about four hours, I’m going to totally die over the fact that Reyn is touching my ass—oh my god—but for right now, I just clamber up the links.
When I reach the top, I shakily swing my good leg over the edge and do as he instructed. I wait.
I watch as he watches me, an understanding passing between us.
All systems go.
He scales the fence so fast that I can only watch in disbelief. All this fanfare to get me over the edge and he does it in like three steps and a single drop. Showoff. Once he’s on the other side, landing easily on his feet, he moves beneath me, gesturing me forward.
The trip down is a bit harder.
It’s difficult to swing my weak leg over the edge, and I spend a moment trying to find the best way to brace myself. I can hear Reyn down below, shifting, like maybe he’s anticipating having to catch me. I don’t exactly have time to tell him that I’m fine, I just have to strategize. I clamp down on the top bar with one hand so that my other can grab a handful of my jeans and yank it up.
Once it’s over, I carefully turn, putting my chest to the cardboard. I grab onto the bar with both hands and carefully lower myself, hanging. It’s about three feet to the ground—an easy drop for anyone else, but not for me. Obviously sensing this, I feel Reyn’s hands come up to my hips, clutching me in his sure grip.
“I’ve got you,” he assures, but I still take a deep, steeling breath when I let go.
He lowers me to the ground without so much as a grunt.
When I turn to him, still feeling a little winded, he’s smiling—dark eyes and dimples and all. He holds his phone up. “Five minutes. See? Piece of cake, Baby V.”
I laugh breathlessly, too high on both the victory and the sight of Reyn’s signature smile to form anything coherent.
We take the cardboard with us as we hurry through the tennis court toward the first door. We decided the best way into the gym was through the girls’ locker room. When we arrive, a quick peek at his phone tells us he has about twenty-two minutes to pick the lock.
Reyn crouches down, pulling a black roll from the pouch of his hoodie. When he flips it open, there are all kinds of tools inside—picks, I suppose, though some look crude, fashioned from thick, stiff wire. Maybe even just regular paper clips. I chew on my lip as he takes one of the flatter-looking tools and eases it into the lock. Next, he takes one of the thinner, hooky-looking tools and puts that in.
It’s too dark to make out more than the sharp silhouette of his face, but I can tell his eyes are laser-focused as he works. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but his fingers—skilled and sure—are doing it gently, fingertips easing the rod through the keyhole, back and forth.
I step away for a moment to look out over the court and