And as if Grace could hear his thoughts, he looked up and down through the free air between the Cliffwalk and the bridge, his face barely visible between the trees.
Hunter gave him a game salute, wondering if Grace could see him at all, and then Grace waved back.
And backed away from the ledge he’d been thinking about balancing on.
Hunter let out a long breath, and Artur gave a definite wobble as the bridge caught a gust of wind. Hunter offered his arm, and Artur took it, and together they ventured through the courtyard, stopping to get a cookie from one of the vendors. In twenty minutes, Josh, Grace, Molly, Stirling, and Broadstone met them, right as Julia emerged from the gift shop, her shoulder tote not quite bursting.
“You shopped!” Molly wailed, as though it had only now occurred to her that she would miss out on something if she went running around like a high school kid.
“Only for Danny and Felix,” Julia said, but she sounded self-satisfied. “They were so disappointed they couldn’t make it.”
Grace made a suspicious sound, and Josh elbowed him in the ribs. Hunter suppressed his own smile, and Stirling, oblivious to the interaction around him, said, “Cookies? Did you guys get cookies without us?”
Hunter held out a bag with enough for everyone, and as a group, they wandered back to where the bus would pick them up and continue the tour.
“Thank you,” Hunter said quietly after they’d found their places on the bus.
“For what?” Grace took a bite of his cookie and made a happy sound, like a child. Hunter got that now. Much of his childhood had been unobserved and uncelebrated. Hunter may have been too serious—and definitely too prone to fight, and he’d hated his hometown—but his parents had thrown him birthday parties and taken him to the movies and come to see him when he played football. They may not have understood him, but Hunter knew what it was like to be a cared-for child.
Grace didn’t.
“For not walking along that ledge and getting us kicked out of the park,” Hunter growled.
Grace tried valiantly to swallow an enormous mouthful of cookie. “I wathn’t golma—”
“Yeah, you were,” Hunter huffed. He leaned close enough for their shoulders to touch. “But you didn’t. It would have scared the hell out of me, so thank you.”
Grace munched for a moment and recovered himself. “I do dangerous things all the time,” he said, as if trying to sound sullen, but Hunter heard the plea there for clarification.
“Yeah, so do I,” Hunter said. “But this would have been foolhardy, and there wouldn’t have been a reason for it. We’re both adrenaline junkies, Grace, but we don’t have to be dicks about it.”
Grace grinned at him, and Hunter wiped cookie crumbs from the corners of his mouth. Grace bit a full lower lip, and Hunter watched his eyes widen—and then fill with heat.
“See?” Hunter murmured. “See what can happen when you don’t scare me half to death?”
Grace rolled his eyes. “It might happen anyway,” he said pertly.
“Sure, but now the odds are even better.”
That smile widened, and Grace buried his face against Hunter’s shoulder. “You say good things,” he pronounced. “I can’t wait to see what good things you say tonight!”
Hunter laughed, low and dirty. “We have to make it through the rest of the tour to find out.”
GROUSE MOUNTAIN turned out to be fun. They rode a tram up the mountain, saw the giant windmill, watched lumberjacks throw axes, and heard a talk about birds that made Hunter appreciate the vulture way more than he had. It also made him want to stay far away from the very useful giant garbage scows, because apparently vulture vomit really was a thing, and it was awful.
At the end of the day, Julia had taken them all for Korean barbecue, and finally they spilled back into the hotel, tired and sweaty and chattered out.
Hunter could admit it to himself—he hadn’t had a day this good in a long time.
As the rest of the group gathered into the elevator, Hunter saw it would be too full and held Grace’s arm to keep him back. “We’ll catch the next one,” he said, because he wanted a few words with Grace not overheard by the collective.
Grace seemed to know why, and he waited patiently for the next car to arrive.
“Plans?” he asked.
“Shower and some sleep,” Hunter said with a yawn. He winked. “Late night last night. Early morning, this. Quiet night in, now. You think?”
Grace nodded. “Yeah, I think that sounds goo—” His eyes widened, and he suddenly became very focused on a spot beyond Hunter’s shoulder.
“What?” Hunter demanded.
“Remember Jenkins?” Grace hissed.
“The guy with the gun?” Hunter fought not to swivel his head.
“He just came out of the stairwell. He’s moving slowly, like he’s pretending he doesn’t want to run like hell.”
Hunter’s body was on full alert. “You got your bud?” The question was almost rhetorical. As far as he knew, even Julia had brought hers, because good thieves were paranoid thieves.
Grace nodded, and Hunter pulled his from a little box in his pocket and fitted it in. “You go up the stairwell and find out what he was doing in there. Be careful. I’m going to follow this Jenkins guy. Deal?”
“Deal,” Grace said, and together, slowly, eyes still on each other, they turned from the elevator and headed for the exit, like two people who had suddenly decided to get dessert or something.
“You text the others and let me know what’s doing,” Hunter said. He reached out and gave Grace’s hand a squeeze. “Careful, thief.”
Grace wrinkled his nose. “Fine. Don’t do anything stupid.”
And then Hunter peeled off and went wandering through the lobby while Grace took the stairwell as they passed it.
Hunter felt the separation physically. God, he’d been looking forward to going back to the room and spending time with Grace. The intimacy they were building, brick by brick, hint by hint, sent shivers to more than Hunter’s groin. The thought of winning a smile, a pert remark, a surprising observation from Grace made Hunter feel like… like the boss, the commander, the mastermind.
Hunter didn’t mind being the enforcer—had never thought of gathering his own crew because the responsibility of other people’s lives was a terrible weight to bear. But Grace…. Hunter didn’t want to trust Grace to anyone else’s decisions but his own.
And that was stupid, because Dylan Li was a grown-assed man and Hunter was the muscle. Hunter shouldn’t have even dreamed of having a say.
But he wanted one.
Hunter caught his breath—shit! He’d almost let Jenkins get out of his sight. The man had left the hotel and turned along the marina, seeming to be searching for someone down by the sailboat berths. Hunter found the same line of trees Grace had used after running up Lucius Broadstone’s body and hid behind one, keeping Jenkins in sight. It was still twilight, even though it was after nine, but the brightness of the mist seemed to absorb the figure who walked with purpose toward a boat near the end.
Fuck. There was no way to stalk the man in this light. Hunter, in his dark clothing, would stick out like a sore thumb, and his footsteps would sound like someone banging on tympani with a squirrel in the marina.