Page 205 of Things We Hide from the Light

“What?” I dared him.

“You told your mom about me.”

“So?”

He dropped the sandwich and pounced on me.

I squealed and Piper barked playfully.

“So that deserves a reward,” he said, picking me up.

FORTY-TWO

CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHONK

Lina

“When you said ice cream, I thought you meant a date,” I teased Nash as he lowered the tailgate of his truck in the parking lot of Knockemout Cold, the town’s premier ice cream establishment.

I’d spent the day poring over the crime scene reports from both Nash’s shooting and the warehouse. I also answered a few follow-up questions from the Arlington police detective who was wrapping up his report on the Baker brothers’ naked knife fight. To top it off, I’d watched the dashcam footage of Nash’s shooting, looking for clues.

I was a wreck on the first watch, and by the third, I was so sick to my stomach I tackle hugged him as soon as he walked in the door.

“Look who’s learning to like dates,” he said smugly before setting the sweater-wearing Piper in the bed of the truck with her vanilla puppy cuppy. “Think of this as a double date plus one.”

I handed his cone back to him. “It’s hard to get to third base when we have an audience.” I made sure he was looking in my direction before I took a leisurely lick of my salted caramel ice cream.

“Shouldn’t have gotten you a cone,” he groused.

I sent a smug smile in his direction and perched on the tailgate. He stepped between my legs and planted a chilly, chocolate-flavored kiss right on my mouth.

“Gross. You guys are as bad as Knox and Aunt Naomi,” Waylay complained. She was flanked by Nolan and Sloane—on their second date—and carrying a towering ice cream cone.

“How many scoops is that, Way?” Nash asked.

“Three,” she said.

“Naomi is going to murder us,” I whispered.

“You’re in trouble,” Sloane sang as she and Nolan wandered over to his SUV.

Waylay shimmied her way onto the tailgate next to me. “Okay. You guys busted me out of soccer practice and gave me ice cream before dinner. I’m not stupid. What do you want? Did your laptop get a virus? ’Cause my rates have gone up,” the girl said before taking an enthusiastic slurp of her chocolate chocolate chonk.

“We want to talk to you about the night your mom and Duncan Hugo took you,” Nash said.

“Is this because he’s still out there and you guys want to catch him?” she asked.

“Pretty much, yeah,” he said.

I liked that he wasn’t sugarcoating it. That he trusted Waylay to handle the truth even if it was ugly and scary. My parents had tried to hide so many things from me because they were afraid I wasn’t strong enough to handle the bad. But every time the real truth had been revealed, it felt like another tiny betrayal.

I’d hated it…and holy shit, I was doing the same damn thing to them now. I didn’t trust them to be able to deal with truth so I lied to protect them.

Which meant Nash was right. Again.

“Damn it,” I muttered.

Nash and Waylay both looked at me with concern over their cones.