On the Run (Whispering Key #2) - May Archer Page 0,29
that would be silly. I meant, we agreed we’d hook up in the larger sense of, um… two people who already know each other arranging a meeting. Which happened to be here. At this location,” I finished, super smoothly.
Beale closed his eyes and shook his head, patently unimpressed by my smoothness, which was annoying. He could jump in anytime now.
“So, you knew each other before?” Rafe wrinkled his nose. “How? You’re not from around here.”
Did the designer sandals give it away?
“Oh, the usual way that people meet other people.” I waved a hand airily. “Beale and I have known each other for ages. We’ve been through a lot together.”
Not a lie, really. Cats. Cuddling. Murder microwave. Death-defying yoga. We were basically married in some cultures.
“But, Beale, the only time you’ve been off island for more than a night was the summer Grandma Goodman sent you to camp a billion years ago.” Rafe huffed out a laugh.
“Hey!” I snapped. “Don’t knock Adventure Camp, okay?”
Rafe stared at Beale, who stared at me, probably trying to remember when he’d mentioned Adventure Camp.
I gave him a look that said, In bed. Last night. And I knew he’d gotten the message when his cheeks went red.
I had no idea why Beale’s blushes were such a turn-on… but then again, I didn’t really know a lot of men who blushed, period. Maybe any of them would affect me this way.
Maybe.
“You mean to tell me you met at Adventure Camp?” Rafe demanded, drawing our attention back to him. “Really?”
“God,” Gage breathed. “Just look at them, Rafe! Seriously, this explains so much.”
“I still don’t get what it explains,” Rafe complained. “You went to that camp when you were what, Beale? Sixteen?” He side-eyed me. “Were you sixteen when he was sixteen?”
I had no idea how old Beale was, but I was guessing he was a good bit younger than my thirty-five, so it was a fair assumption that when I was sixteen, Beale would have been… illegal. Still. I resented the implication that I looked like the oldest person in the room, even if I was.
“Are you calling me old?” I demanded. “Beale, is he calling me old? Because I’m not old. I’m in prime physical form.”
Beale’s mouth opened and shut again, and I made a note to self to kill him for his hesitation.
“Of course you are,” Gage soothed.
I gently skimmed my under-eye area with my fingertips, checking for any bags that might have formed since I last looked in the mirror. “It’s not my fault my sleep last night was interrupted because I was callously awoken for hijinks involving Beale and, er—” I stopped myself before I referenced the cat. “Beale.”
“Hijinks,” Gage said avidly. “Do tell.”
“Please do not,” Beale said firmly.
I huffed. “My point is that age is just a number.”
“And what’s your number?” Rafe demanded.
Beale made a sound halfway between laughter and vomiting, which I did not appreciate, so I did what came naturally. I kept talking.
“Imagine, if you will, that I was a handsome lad of nineteen summers.” I decided I was willing to be three years older than Beale in this story, no more. “Charged with guiding virile young men on their adventures, as one does at Adventure Camp.”
“Ooookay, then. I’m gonna stop you right there, Trey.” Beale laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed… rather hard. “Before you make this already weird story into a Dateline-NBC-weird story. Yes, Trey and I know each other from camp,” he told his brothers. “It’s not a big deal.”
“We bonded over shared interests.” I sighed happily, settling into the lie. “It was magical.”
Rafe looked at me in my crop top and then at Beale, who was still damp with sweat from his run. “Which interests would those be?”
“Er…” Shit. Like Icarus, I had flown too close to the sun, and I was about to get caught. “Like…”
“Animal rescue,” Beale said smoothly.
“Animal rescue.” Rafe’s frown deepened. “Really?”
“Totes.” I nodded. “We save people from animals at all hours of the day or night. Especially murder cats. We live for it.”
“You mean we save animals,” Beale corrected.
Shit. “Isn’t that what I said? Ha. Silly me. Again. Yes. Obviously that’s what I meant. Beneath this current-season Calvin Klein top beats the heart of an animal lover.”
Beale shot me a look that said, You’d better not be thinking of steak au poivre when you say that, and I pursed my lips because maybe I had been and maybe I hadn’t, and that was none of his beeswax.