nods when I insert the wrench, his eyes watching me so closely that my neck prickles. “You’re going to put some light tension on the plug, like you’re turning the lock, but you’re not. Just kind of rest your fingers on it.”
“Like this?”
“Exactly.” He shifts a bit, so close that I can smell him, voice a rough murmur. “Now put the pick in, hook-side up. All the way to the back. Good, now…” He shifts impossibly closer, his shoulders almost curled around mine. “Drag it out, really slowly. Try to feel the pins. You feel them?”
I furrow my eyebrows, trying. “I don’t think—oh. Yeah, that little bump?” I can even kind of hear the click when the pick runs over it. “I feel two. No. Three.”
“Sounds about right. You’re going to press each of those pins in,” he explains, miming the action. “One at a time, click, click, click.” I do what he says, but it’s harder to catch the pins than he makes it sound—and look. “Just take your time, it’ll take a few tries, but—”
Click. “Oh, I got one.”
I can see his grin out of the corner of my eye. “Wicked. Do the next one.”
The second one is just as hard, but I have a better feel for it now. It only takes a handful of stabs before the click comes. I lose the third pin for a moment and have to kind of shift around. I feel more than hear Reyn’s silent puff of laughter.
“You’re out too much, go in a bit.”
Ah. There it is. I prod at it carefully, and I realize just how precise Reyn needs to be when doing this stuff. The smallest slip could mean starting over. No wonder he’s learned to be so still.
When I get the third pin, Reyn shifts again, and I can hear him lick his lips. “Okay, take the pick out, but not the wrench. There you go. Now you need to choose which way to turn it.”
I almost think of making him choose. It only seems fair. But I’m sort of weirdly attached to the idea of picking this lock all by myself now. I choose left, because it’s been such a pal tonight, and I’m nothing if not loyal.
The lock springs open.
“Sweet,” he says. “You’re a natural, Baby V.”
I look at Reyn and he graces me with another one of those dimpled smiles. You’d think if he showed me enough of them, I’d begin building a tolerance, but that is clearly not the case. Especially when he’s as close as he is now. Without my permission, my eyes glance down at his mouth, and it’s an idle thought—that it’d only take a few inches to clear the space—but it’s enough to make my cheeks heat. When my eyes flick back up to his, I find that his gaze is fixed on my lips, too.
It would be so easy, but...
We both quickly stand, shuffling away from one another. Reynolds McAllister doesn’t think about me like that. Even after our shared kiss. How many times has he called me ‘Baby V,’ tonight?
I’m just a kid, and bringing me along tonight was just another night of babysitting.
I gesture to the helmet. “You want to do the honors?”
Wordlessly, he nods, easing the trophy case open and extracting the Viking helmet. “Heavy,” he notes, rubbing the pads of his fingers over the engravings. “Your turn.”
I put the Devil horns on the shelf, adjusting them just-so, and carefully close the door.
We have to kill a few minutes in the locker room, waiting by the door. Both of us have our phones out, watching the time, but there’s been this weird shift in energy all of a sudden, like neither of us wants to talk. It’s a formless impulse, and I’m not sure if it's born of an apprehension to build on the moment or completely shatter it.
Either way, Reyn is solemnly quiet when we finally exit the door.
We get to the fence and he throws the cardboard up. I try to fight against the strange sinking feeling. I can’t exactly put a name to it, but it feels kind of like a worse version of disappointment. Like maybe there could have been a moment back there. Like maybe we could have—
But we didn’t.
Reyn stands behind me as I ascend the fence, but he doesn’t put his hand on my ass this time. Instead, he holds my hips, pushing me up.