shield, even though there was no reason she should be hiding. She was holding his arms out to the sides, her fingers wrapped around his biceps, like he really was a shield she was brandishing.
“What’s Holden doing?” she whispered.
He searched the crowd for the overgrown emo boy they’d seen before. “I have to say, I expected him to look different.”
“Different how?”
Ah crap. This was not the part where he would admit to having googled Holden Hampshire. He’d read the dude’s Wikipedia entry but apparently hadn’t paid attention to his photo. “I don’t know. Older.” Less like a thirty-five-year-old douchebag. It was hard to believe that Holden was a couple years older than Law was.
This guy was wearing jeans, which, fine. It was hot, though. Normal people came to the Raspberry Festival in shorts. But the kicker was that on top, he was wearing a sweater. A black one. In July. It wasn’t a regular sweater, though. It was loosely woven, like a giant had knit a sweater out of rope using oversize needles.
So it wouldn’t have worked as a sweater in actual sweater weather, either. It was a completely-inappropriate-for-any-season sweater.
“Don’t let him see me!” Maya tightened her grip on him.
She looked fine. If you were partial to the sun glinting off wet skin and smudgy eye makeup that called to mind a night spent—
He shook his head. All this hiding was unnecessary, was the point.
But actually, when he thought of Holden seeing those red buttons, those tactile, shiny little discs running from beneath her breasts to the bones of her hips…
He puffed out his chest to try to make it bigger, more of a shield.
His attention was drawn by the approach of someone else. It was Maya’s brother. He hadn’t realized Rohan was in town. “Hey,” he said.
“Get rid of him,” Maya whisper-implored. Law tried to pull away, but she was still clinging to him, which caused a little tussle. Her breasts brushed his back. He sucked in a breath. It felt like she was sparking. Or he was. Someone was sparking.
“Nice to see you,” he said to Rohan, pulling harder so as to make the sparks stop. Interestingly, they did not, even as he successfully broke contact. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Oh my God, no!” she whimpered, still under the impression that he was talking to Holden. It pained him that she thought he would sell her out like that. Yes, they disliked each other—sort of…not really—but he would never set her up for actual humiliation.
The fact that she could so easily think he would lit a spark of irritation in his chest.
Which was actually fine, because that kind of spark he was familiar with.
“It’s your brother,” he said, stepping aside and not even bothering to temper the annoyance in his tone. “Your precious pop star has gone into Pearl’s.”
“Wait. What?”
“Hey, kid,” Rohan said to his sister.
“Rohan? Oh my God, Rohan!” Maya clapped her hands and jumped up and down, spraying Law in the process. He sputtered. She didn’t notice. “What are you doing here?”
“I had a sudden yen for a vacation. Thought I’d hit the Raspberry Festival, stay on for your play.”
“But that’s in like a month!”
Ro just shrugged.
“What?” Maya exclaimed. “What about voluntarily running twenty-six miles through the forest? What about Kara? What about your job?”
Rohan shrugged. “Change of plans on the marathon, Kara and I broke up, and as for the job, I just…felt like a break.”
“Rohan!” Maya sloshed over to the edge of the tank. “You broke up with another one? I didn’t even get to meet her!”
He shrugged. Maya shook her head and threw her arms around him, drenching him in the process.
Unbothered, he hugged her back. “Good to see you, kid.”
Chapter Ten
Maya used Ro’s appearance as an excuse to get out of the rest of her dunk-tank shift without making it look like she was shirking her community-mindedness duties—or letting Benjamin win something. She pulled on a cover-up, and they walked down to the lake.
“What’s going on?” she asked when they reached the pier. When he shrugged, she slugged him in the arm. “What. Is. Going. On?” Something was. Rohan made plans and executed them. He didn’t show up unannounced.
“Ow! Okay. If I tell you, you have to swear you won’t tell Mom or Dad. Or anyone.”
“All right.” Crap. She was starting to get scared. Was he dying?
He turned to her. “I quit my job. And broke up with Kara, but I told you that part.”
“What? Why?” Kara she wasn’t surprised