Page 22 of Under Locke & Key

I’ve missed most of the presentation but this is my fourth of these things in the last two weeks alone and I could probably scent the metallic tang of a padlock a mile away.

We file into the room one by one and once we’re “locked in” we all look at each other with sheepish smiles.

I wait a beat for Bryce but he’s swallowing hard and so I take the initiative.

“Hi, I’m Rachel.” I reach out my hand for Logan and Gabrielle who point at themselves and provide their names even though I already know.

“This is my boss, Bryce,” I say to my friends and then I turn to look up at the man that’s had my brain fuzzy all month, my gaze catching on him for just a moment too long to be casual before I turn back to my friends.

“And this is ángel, Sebastian, and Farren.” ángel starts them off with a little wave, a smirk thrown my way that I’m going to elbow him for later, and Farren and Sebastian follow suit as I list out their names.

“I know Sebastian through our former jobs, Farren is his partner—the game designer I told you about—and ángel is my best friend.”

ángel is my worst-one-night-stand-turned-best-friend-and-wing-man and he smirks at my sappy title. We’ve never actually said it out loud, but it’s true. Nobody in this room knows me better. Hell, nobody knows me better, in general. Sometimes I wish it had been us, but it never would have worked.

He’s too snarky and flighty. I’m too outwardly buttoned up with fucked up interpersonal relationships from my parents through to my exes.

Neither of us knows how to care for ourselves let alone someone else.

He’s seen my ugly and time took care of the rest. Whatever budding attraction may have existed all those years ago faded into something easy and far healthier for the both of us.

“Nice to meet you all,” Bryce says beside me, his voice low and soft as if he’s shy about being in a room where the people he doesn’t know outnumber the ones he does.

I don’t dare count myself among the people he knows, not when everything is so tentative. Maybe in time we’ll be real friends. Maybe soon I’ll be able to set aside these conflicting feelings and I’ll see him and he’ll see the real me—not just the practiced one.

“Right, you two are the experts, so put us to work!” Logan says, breaking the awkward silence and we split off into our respective little groups without thinking about it.

I’m not sure how to feel about the fact that Bryce has opted toward one corner with his friends and left the other to me and mine.

“Right, so when you said he was hot that was a massive fucking understatement,” ángel hisses loud enough for me, Sebastian and Farren to hear and she giggles when I poke ángel in the ribs. Sebastian just watches us with an amused half-smile on his face and his arms crossed, the scene unfolding.

“Shut it. I am not discussing that right now. We have an objective to reach and the last thing I need is you sticking your nose into nothing.”

“I don’t see the ring, Rachel,” ángel says it innocently, but the mischief behind his eyes has me rolling mine.

“Divorced.”

If we weren’t conspiring, whispering in the corner, ángel might have whooped out a victorious laugh.

“That doesn’t change the fact that he’s my boss.

I am currently on the clock , and I have no idea if he’s interested.

” I thank goodness that the game master has started up some spooky soundtrack for our investigative task inside this supposed haunted house, because I really don’t want anyone on the other side of the room to know what I’m saying.

“Oh, he’s interested.” Sebastian pulls me out of my irritation at ángel’s audacity, his eyebrow raised as he looks behind me, presumably at Bryce.

I sputter at Sebastian, unsure what to say and his half-smile stretches into a full blown grin before he speaks with unrestrained glee, “Oh shit. You’ve got it bad. I’ve never seen you flustered . . . ever.”

“I do not! I am not!” I say in a hushed, frantic voice.

I know it’s petulant, protesting far more than what’s necessary, and ángel just gives me a look that says I can try but I’m not fooling any of them.

Despite keeping my text updates to them this past month as dry as possible, clearly I’ve given away too much.

“Let’s get to the fucking task at hand before I lose my damn job.” Grumbling, I start pulling open drawers looking for clues.

Our little group breaks up and soon we’re combing the room for anything that might get us answers so we can get the hell out of here.

Gabrielle finds a hidden message in the mirror once she fogs it up.

Logan tugs on the bust of the main character of the room and we hear a loud crash, something falling down through the chimney.

This is one of the better rooms we’ve done with a lot of interaction besides just finding locks and twisting combinations into them.

We comb over the map for a clue as to where our victim went and who he met, trying to work backwards through our murdered homeowner’s last day to figure out who killed him and why.

The hour ticks by, every fifteen minutes punctuated by the ding of an analog clock above the door.

Farren is first to integrate herself into Bryce’s group, ángel following close behind.

Sebastian has the sense to stay near me, or perhaps he’s still kind of wary of new people until he’s had time to suss them out.

Maybe he just wants to watch Farren bend over to tug on a loose floorboard and admire her backside, who knows? As for me—I’m overheating. I’m desperately scouring the last will and testament of Lord Huckleby when all I want to do is watch Bryce.

How his brows knit over those warm eyes and the way he tugs a corner of his bottom lip between his teeth when he’s concentrating too hard is distracting.

I can smell his cologne all the way over here, not because it’s strong, not because I have some stupid heightened sense of smell, but because I know exactly what the scent is.

I could conjure it from memory if I tried.

How the fuck am I going to make it through the remaining months of my contract and stay unaffected?

“Mind if I take a look?” Bryce asks behind me, as if I’ve summoned him through thirst alone.

“Not at all. I’m trying to figure out who had the most to gain from his death.” I don’t turn, afraid to when I can feel the heat of him behind me and if I do, if I step back, I’ll be too close in his personal space.

His hand reaches over my shoulder, his bicep next to my cheek and he takes hold of the parchment—right above my hand, his pinky touching my thumb.

Bryce shuffles slightly closer, looking at the paper that’s totally blurred in my vision, because he’s against me now.

Just barely. Just enough to make me forget how to swallow properly.

Those notes of his scent that teased me across the room totally invade my senses.

“It was his nephew,” he says and I feel the words against my back, the rumble of them passing through me like I’m made of air and pulled taut as a drum.

“Look.” Bryce leaves me holding the parchment and runs his finger along the line bequeathing the fortune to Huckleby’s nephew, Henry.

And then he’s gone, across the room before I can suck in a shuddering breath that doesn’t carry his smell.

“Try ‘Henry’ on the letter lock!” Bryce says.

ángel fumbles with the wooden rods, twisting them so the five letters align perfectly and then a book dips down from the bookshelf behind us, a soft clutter sounding behind it.

I tug the book from the shelf and inside is a small (fake) dagger coated in blood (also fake) with the initials HH carved into the handle.

“Congratulations! You solved the murder of Lord Huckleby and found Henry’s dagger before he could come back to catch you snooping, without any hints and within forty minutes. Good job, everyone!” A disembodied voice sounds over a speaker, startling us in the room.

A few moments later the host comes into the room with a camera and urges us to stand in front of the fireplace to take a group picture.

Somehow I end up wedged in the middle, caught between Bryce on one side and my friends on the other.

Bryce’s arm wraps around my waist from behind, his other likely doing the same to whoever is on his other side, but it’s scorching.

The imprint of his large hand on my side feels like standing too close to a fire, not hot enough to burn but dangerous all the same if I take just one step nearer.

“Thank you so much!” Bryce thanks the host and we follow suit, filing out of the building and onto the sidewalk.

“You guys want to grab some dinner? There’s a good Asian place near here,” Farren offers and the group agrees.

I’m last to join them outside, off kilter, and ángel notices.

Threading his arm through mine, locking elbows like we’re Jack and Jill bounding up a fucking hill. “Come on, let’s get you fed. You always function better when you have carbs in your system.”

“I’m not sure food’s going to fix this, ángel.”

He tuts in understanding, “You either need to get over it or be brave enough to take a risk.”

“It’s just an attraction. Nothing more…”

“If it was just attraction then crab rangoon would’ve been enough of a distraction to pull you out of this.”

We walk down the block, ángel and I trailing behind the group as I hear Farren faintly talk to Bryce and his friends about board games and hers that she designed.

Settling down to eat I somehow find myself next to Bryce again, and ángel on my other side. Farren and Sebastian are not so subtle across from us and Logan and Gabrielle keep looking at me like I have something on my face, which ángel has assured me I don’t.

“So, how have the first couple months been?” Logan asks, his eyes kind on Bryce.

Bryce takes a bracing breath beside me, the side of his arm brushing against mine as his chest fills with air and he blows it out in a huff.

“That bad, huh?” Logan asks.