Page 35 of Fighting With Light

She giggles in her hand and I pour my eggs into the hot skillet.

“What’s so funny?” I ask her.

She keeps laughing and takes a breath before she says, “We clicked instantly, yet we are soawkward,and you’re one of the most charming men I have ever met, and we’re both…experienced. So the fact that this feels weird ishilariousto me.”

I snort and stir my eggs. My smile turns into a chuckle and I look at her again.

“Maybe we need to just chill out and go with the flow. I’ll be honest, sexy time was the last thing on my mind last night,” she says.

“Same here,” I grumble.

I stare at my eggs, scrambling them. “I’d like to take you out, though, for real.”

“For real?” she asks.

“Yeah, I want to take you on a date that doesn’t have the end goal of you tied to a bed.”

“Well, if you remember correctly, I didn’t saythatwas the problem.”

I laugh nervously, flipping the pancake and my stomach flips right with it. I’m not nervous around women, or anyone, for that matter.

“Well, maybe you should be awake next time.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I would prefer that.”

“Noted,” I quip.

“So when are we going to go rock climbing?” she asks.

I flip the other pancakes and move the done ones off the griddle and stir my eggs. “Not until after my competition. I hope that’s okay.”

She hums.

I haven’t forgotten about her bodyguard. After TSA released him, he got on a plane to Portugal, so he’s likely here already. Unless he got a wild layover that took more time. “Have you heard from your Ben?”

She sighs and reaches for her phone on the counter. “Yeah, he texted me and told me he was here and told me to meet him. I told him I was with a friend, but I think he might find us sooner rather than later.”

I shake my head and flip the stove off. “He won’t. I disabled your location.”

Her eyes widen. “Why? He’s going to notice, then he’s going to tell my dad. Then my dad is going to freak out, and it’s not even because he’s worried for my safety. It will be because —” She cuts her panicked words off and I set my plate down.

“Aelia, it’s fine. I just redirected the location, so he can’t directly trace you. It’s like the equivalent of an untraceable call.”

Her shoulders drop. “Oh,” she says.

“You should text him, though, so he doesn’t think something is wrong. Keep him out of the loop enough so he doesn’t have a reason to go to your dad,” I tell her.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

I hand her a plate of pancakes.

“Thank you, these look good.” I hum and sit down at the island next to her. We eat and I go over the list in my head for what specific information we need for the case. I figure if we don’t hand everything to the authorities on a silver platter, they won’t pursue it.

For this case to be worth looking into, we need cold, hard proof of wrongdoing in order for the authorities to move forward with my father. We need unequivocal evidence that he is working with a mob boss, and unfortunately, a handshake won’t cut it.

We’re going to need audio, video, and photos, and I’m really hoping I can find evidence of a paper trail. That one is going to be harder than it seems because it’s not like they putillegal gunson the manifest for the contents on a cargo ship.

The research that I’m hung up on, though, is Dad’s money. He has to have some kind of proof as to where that money is coming from or who is payinghim, only I don’t know how to get that information. Aelia’s phone buzzes and I glance at her.