Brazen Mistakes (Brazen Boys #3)

39. Clara

Chapter 39

Clara

T he next day is full of preparations for the New Year’s Eve poker party, and despite all my work to find a place to fit in with the team, it’s obvious that I don’t have a role here yet.

After my best attempt at cleaning the attic and vacuuming the stairs, it’s clear there’s nothing else for me to do. The guys have it all covered.

The only criminally helpful thing I’ve been given is a request from an exhausted RJ to brainstorm a way to help his dad tomorrow, after we’ve recovered from the party. I’m glad he’s asking for help. He’s looking nearly as tired as I feel.

Instead of continuing to be in their way, I end up in my newly private bedroom, my laptop open on my desk. Why?

I have no idea. I just need to keep busy, and Netflix isn’t going to cover it. Without any more thought than that, I pull out Summer’s business card .

Her business seems legitimate, with glowing reviews and shots of her in muddy boots and jeans with big dogs’ paws up on her chest as she laughs or holding a giant umbrella over little dogs in silly-looking raincoats.

She seems good at her job. I do a quick search for how much you can make as a dog walker, and while you can make a living from it, it’s not sports cars and designer clothes money.

Maybe she’s deep in debt? I know she gambles, so that’s possible.

Only Trips wouldn’t let her play if he didn’t know she was good for the money.

Putting on my RJ hat, I go through the steps he taught me the other day, scraping all the social media I can find of Summer. It turns out that she’s hard to find. Besides her dog pictures and a handful of selfies, she doesn’t have much of a presence online.

After learning as much as I have over the last few months, the lack of info just reinforces my suspicion that there’s more to Summer than I already know.

A rap on my door has me turning around, the broken pleather of my chair catching on my sweatpants. I make a mental note to find some duct tape soon and repair my shitty chair.

Walker’s standing in the door, an easy grin on his face. “What are you up to?”

“I’m trying to figure out Summer. The things she’s told me and the things I’ve seen don’t add up.”

His grin grows. “I’m excited for you to figure it out.”

“So you know? ”

“We all do. She’ll share it with you if she decides you’re trustworthy, but we demanded more information before she joined the game. It’s her secret to keep or tell, unfortunately, princess.”

“All good. I wouldn’t want you blathering all my secrets left and right, so I have to extend her the same courtesy, even if I hate it.”

He comes across my room, scooping me off my chair before sitting down himself, his face scrunching before he drags me onto his lap. “Your chair is shit,” he says.

“Sure is.”

He chuckles, kissing my neck before peering over my shoulder, clicking through the open tabs, and glancing at my notebook where I’ve been taking notes, so abbreviated that they could be mistaken as code.

Honestly, making my own code would be smart. Then I can make my lists without them being turned into evidence. Only the headliner criminal cases get the funds to bother paying to decipher gibberish.

“RJ did a good job teaching you the basics.”

“He’s an excellent teacher.”

“Want to see if I can be an excellent teacher, too?”

“Are you planning on teaching me to draw? Because I can promise you, I’m not your ideal pupil.”

His fingers slip under my shirt, brushing the skin above my waistband. “We could always start with finger paints.”

“I’m good at that. And I can draw a mean kitten, courtesy of little Isabella I nannied for two summers ago. But otherwise, I’m pretty useless. ”

“I’m curious about this kitten situation. But no drawing lessons today. Instead, I figured I’d take you out climbing.”

“Out? The whole world is covered in snow.”

“The gym, silly.”

If I needed any more evidence that my lack of sleep is disrupting my normal brain function, well, there it is. “The gym. Of course.” I twist to look at him. “I’ve never been climbing. Is it hard?”

Walker shrugs. “It’s the kind of thing where you can always push yourself to be better.”

“So, my kryptonite?”

“If you end up liking it, yeah. It might be.”

“Just you and me?”

“Jay wanted to come, but he has to go pick up the keg and liquor as they’re under his name. RJ tried climbing a few times and didn’t like it much. And Trips got pissed when he tried to haul his heavy ass up the wall while Jansen climbed literal circles around him, so he’s not a big fan of it either.”

I laugh, perfectly able to imagine that situation. “Got it. Do I need to change?”

He looks me up and down. “As much as I want to see you wrapped in Lycra, you’re probably fine.”

“Then let’s go.”

The climbing gym is huge, and the price to get in makes my breath catch. Walker covers the cost despite my protests, then pulls me to a corner far from everyone .

“How are you with heights?” he asks.

I picture myself perched on the railing last night with Jansen. “Not as comfortable as Jansen, but otherwise, pretty good.”

“No one is as comfortable with heights as Jansen.”

We share a laugh as we pull on our tiny rubbery shoes.

“I can’t belay you yet. I thought we’d start with bouldering. Since you’re good with heights, we could grab an auto-belay if you really wanted to.”

“Words I understood—good with heights.”

He chuckles. “Got it. Want to go up high, or stay close to the ground while learning the basics?”

“Close to the ground sounds safer.”

He talks me through safety first. This is followed by how to read the colored lumps up the wall, then a lesson on how to position my body close to the wall so I don’t strain my arms as much.

After a pathetically few number of attempts, my arms are shaking and my hands ache, so I sprawl across the mat with a groan. Without a word, Walker massages my forearm, and I make a sound that probably shouldn’t be shared in public.

Walker’s little smile tells me he recognizes that sound, too.

Whoops.

I try to focus on something less appealing than Walker’s hands on my skin. “Weird question. I know you guys are big on keeping secrets, but do you have secret codes or anything that I might need to know about?”

He moves on to my other arm, crawling over me to get to it, hovering above me for just long enough for my heart to pound in my ears, but not long enough to gain any attention from the other climbers in the gym.

“Flirt,” I mumble.

As a reward for that grumble, I get a nip on the delicate skin under my ear, goosebumps shooting across my skin as he returns to massaging my arm.

There’s no hiding that.

He swallows, and I know his teasing is affecting him the same as it is me. Serves him right.

His fingers dig into my arm, and I barely hold back another inappropriate sound. “Back to the question, yeah. We have a whole series of food-related codes.”

“Why food?”

“Because we were nineteen, it was breakfast time, and we were almost out of groceries.”

I laugh. “Fair enough. I’d love to learn them.”

“I’ll teach them to you on the drive home.”

Glancing around the space, I don’t see anything suspicious, just a middle-aged guy with his back to us across the way, but my paranoia is omnipresent. Now that Bryce has included the guys in his threats, no matter how obliquely, the severity of the situation has sunk in.

“I was thinking about coming up with my own code so I can take notes and make lists. I feel like half of myself without being able to put my thoughts on paper, and I’m terrified I’ll forget something important if I don’t write it down.”

Walker thinks about what I said, like he’s not sure if he can give me permission to do this .

I keep talking, though, not able to pretend this isn’t important. “Also, it just feels amazing to check stuff off my list. I miss that.”

“If your code is good enough, it might work. I know Trips has something similar for his little black book. I can’t make heads or tails of it, but it makes sense to him.”

“Run it by Trips once I think it’s good enough?”

“Nah, run it by RJ. If it’s easy to crack, he’ll have it translated by the end of the day. Then bring it to Trips and tell him RJ said it was good, and voila, you have your very own code.”

“We have a plan.” I grin up at him.

“I’m going to hop on the wall for a few more goes. Sadly, I’m a bit out of shape after how busy things were at the end of the semester, so I’m pretty sure I’m not going to flash anything too crazy.”

“Flash what? Me? Here?” I whisper-shout.

He stares at me, confused, before bursting into laughter. “Oh God, no, I didn’t mean like that. Flash means to make it to the top on the first try,” he wheezes out.

“Oh.” A chuckle escapes me as I think about my faux pas. Yikes. There’s a lot of lingo here that I just don’t know.

I spend the next forty-five minutes mostly trying not to be distracted by Walker’s ass, shoulders, and even his fucking calves as he follows routes that are all but impossible for me. I don’t succeed, and I’m okay with that.

Hopping back on the wall a few times seems like a good idea, but my arms are so shaky it makes me miss my shitty, smelly high school weight room for the first time since I graduated. My haphazard push-ups haven’t done anything for my upper body strength .

After we’re both too tired to continue climbing, which is apparently called “pumped,” we return my rental shoes and load back into the car.

“Want to grab something to eat on the way home?”

No. “If you’re hungry, sure.”

Walker’s gaze is heavy on me, and I scramble to find something to distract him. “You promised me secret codes.”

“Do you like fish?”

“Is that a code?”

“That’s a question. I know a place with the best fish tacos. Want to hit it up?”

“Sounds good.” If I could eat more than a few bites, that is. “So, secret code me up.”

He shakes his head, winding through a neighborhood, the snow black and crusty at the curb. “They’re really dumb, but they work. Blueberry muffins means meeting, hot coffee means danger, donut holes means police, and scrambled eggs means scatter. Then we have locations. Home is just home, but then we have three secondary locations. Red is the student union, gold is the MacDonald’s by campus, and blue is Trips’ other house.”

My brain stutters. “Wait. Trips’ other house?”

“Oh. Yeah. It’s how we launder money. He just bought two more a few blocks from home.”

I stare at Walker, not knowing how to respond. “He has how many houses?”

“Four. Ours was the first, of course, and our rent is a way to clean our funds. The second one we got early last year, fixed it up first semester, then rented it out for second semester.”

“But how does that launder money? ”

“We advertise the old ‘this house is a dump’ rate, pick our favorite tenants, and then report a higher rent amount, co-mingling their legit funds with our dirty money. Trips says we’re going to have to scale up for this to work once we’re out of school and taking regular work, but it’s good for now.”

I slump back into the seat. “Money laundering.”

“You knew that was part of what we do.”

“I did, but it was always some nebulous idea, not an actual plan for cleaning your funds. What about the scholarship money? I’m not the only one getting that, so how does all that get clean?”

“We set up charities and then our shell companies donated the money to them. We have a few other kids we don’t even know who have applied and gotten money too, but it’s worth it to lose some funds to get our tuition covered. And each of us has different charities, so it looks less suspicious. You’ll be our fifth nonprofit, princess.”

“Trips uses the charity system?”

“No. He uses his trust fund for school. But Jansen’s sister got her last year covered, and then RJ’s sister is getting a full ride for all four years, along with those random kids.”

He turns into a tiny parking lot outside of a shack-like shop. “We’re here. They only have fish tacos, so you can stay warm here and I’ll run in and get them.”

My mind barely follows this mundane turn in conversation. “Okay.”

Walker steps from the car, rushing to the shop with fogged-up windows and peeling paint while I stare after him, trying to catalogue all the new information I just got. I asked for code words and ended up with money laundering and the knowledge that Trips is my landlord.

No wonder the room was such a steal.

Another point where I could turn, where I should probably go to the cops, but instead of righteous horror, I’m impressed.

Okay, that’s a bit of a lie. There’s some horror too. But I’m more impressed, so ding ding , we have a winner.

They really thought of everything over the last few years. They’re so young to have built all this.

It might only be a foundation, but it’s a sturdy one.

Take enough accounting and law classes, which I have, and it’s easy to see how smart the co-mingled funds are, how setting up honest scholarship programs as a cost of doing business has let them pay for school. And as every high school counselor says, tons of scholarships don’t even get applications every year, so it’s not like they’re even losing that much.

Knowing that Trips is targeting Dinkytown, which has notoriously shitty student housing, and is fixing it up but charging lower rates? It’s brilliant. He’s not displacing any potential homeowners, he’s making the housing safer and cleaner, and then he’s keeping rent low.

They must get hundreds of applicants, and with RJ’s skills, they know exactly who they’re renting to. They get the pick of the litter, and their tenants get a good deal on a nice place.

No wonder Trips was worried I’d burned down the kitchen while he wasn’t at home—he’s the one who’d have to fix it.

The driver’s door cracks open, and Walker hands me a bag of salty and spicy-smelling food. Just from the scent, I can tell these are probably amazing. I just worked out, so I’m sure I need the nutrition. And yesterday I ran and failed at learning self-defense. When was the last time I ate until I was full?

Nope. Not going there.

His focus shifts between me and the road. “You look like you’re thinking big thoughts.”

“I’m impressed with what you guys have set up.”

“Glad you’ve joined this side of the law?”

“With criminals like you guys, I wouldn’t have stood a chance,” I say, thinking about my unanswered offer from the FBI.

Walker takes an unexpected turn. “Picnic? We’ll only be in the way at the house until later. I thought I’d take you to the sculpture garden.”

“Really? I haven’t been over there since I was in grade school. In the mood for viewing the cherry and the spoon?”

“I like the installations. It’s the kind of art I would do if there were no constraints on me.”

“I remember you saying that in Chicago. Why can’t you do big art?”

He taps the steering wheel. Am I straying too close to the personal? Should I backtrack?

“There isn’t much of a market for large-scale sculptures, a legal one or an illegal one, for it to make sense. And as much as I love art, life costs money, and I can’t bankroll a decade or more of failed jousts at the art market until I find someone to champion my name. It’s better to do the stuff that makes money.”

“That’s sad.”

He gives my hand a squeeze. “Maybe a little. I just imagine someday having a metalworking shed in the woods somewhere, building giant and crazy contraptions, and it makes it a fanciful dream instead.”

“Would you have those goggles that mad scientists wear? Because that’s what I’m imagining.”

His laugh bounces around the car as we wind around, looking for parking by the garden. “If you buy them for me, I’ll wear them.”

“Excellent. What else would you wear if I bought it for you?” I ask, not able to help teasing him.

His gaze darkens. “It depends. Do all your choices lead to you laughing at me? Or…” He trails off, leaving the implication hanging.

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

He rolls his eyes before detangling our hands so he can park.

The walk to the snowy garden should be calm, the bag of food wafting delicious scents in the air, but something has me twisting around, checking behind me.

“What is it?” Walker asks the third time I stop, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

I step in front of him, using his body to shield my movements as I peek behind him from around his other side.

But there’s still nothing.

I lean against his chest, the food swinging beside our legs. “I guess nothing. It just feels like someone’s watching, you know?”

He stands a little taller, slowly scanning around us. The tiny broken part of me that still hasn’t healed calms, knowing he’s taking me seriously, that he’s not going to tell me I’m delusional, or too sensitive, or worst of all, self-centered, thinking the whole world is looking at me. No, instead he takes a moment to look around, then wraps his arms around me, taking the bag of food from me.

“Should we stay? Or head home? Any alerts?”

I take a deep breath. “No alerts. Let’s stay. But if either of us sees anything, we leave. Fair?”

His lips are warm on my forehead. “Your superpower is basically observation skills, Clara, so if you think something isn’t right, we should go.”

A small smile twitches on my lips. “I want to see what you like about the sculpture garden. And between my messed-up sleep and lack of food, I could be totally off.”

Great. Now I’m gaslighting myself. But it probably is nothing. Even if it’s Bryce, what’s he going to do while we’re in a public space eating tacos? Take pictures? Taco pictures aren’t particularly intimidating, not after the threesome he caught.

I link arms with Walker and continue to the garden.

We find a bench in the greenhouse, eating our tacos surrounded by tropical plants. As I couldn’t imagine how we’d eat tacos successfully while wearing mittens, it’s a pleasant surprise.

And they are yummy enough for even my half-dead taste buds to wake up and let me enjoy an entire taco.

I’d normally eat at least three, but one feels like I won a race, so whatever. It’s good enough.

While we eat, Walker explains which pieces are his favorites and why, then plans out how to hit each of them up without staying in the snow for long. It’s warmer today than it has been for the last week, but it’s still not weather where I want to loiter in the snow for hours learning about art.

Going to museums with Walker is becoming one of my favorite activities. He gets so excited that I want to bask in it, support it, celebrate it. When he’s gushing about art, there aren’t any barriers between Walker the person and Walker the guy who pretends to be somebody else. And I love seeing him light up, share stories, ideas, plans even, for the things he wants to build. Someday.

I want to gift him that someday.

But for now, I’m just a girl on a date with a boy she loves.

And this is the most normal I’ve felt in what feels like forever.