Vigilant

What was she doing? She worked with him, and…the other time had been a mistake, but this? This was no mistake. Ari was trolling for him, which was just…wrong.

“Ari,” he said, but she’d made her decision.

She ran.

She bolted through the crowd, thick with spectators. They fought back, unaware that she just wanted to get away. They were hoping to get an eyeful of the tricks being performed on the stage. Regardless, Ari was determined to get away from him and this clusterfeck of a mistake she’d made, so she struggled through, squeezing and ducking between sweaty bodies. She’d go to Stanton tomorrow and tell him to remove Curtis from her caseload. Let someone else take the case and not embarrass herself any further.

The club had a side exit and Ari pushed through it, knowing the fire alarm wouldn’t go off. She’d seen others going in and out of the door before.

The cold night air slapped her face the instant she stepped outside, and her hearing sounded hollow from the loud music. Tears formed from the cold but reality seemed even more real out there. She’d come to rid herself of the numbness and only made a fool of herself.

“Ari.” She heard her name. Looking straight ahead, she pretended she didn’t hear him. She ran up a short flight of concrete steps to the parking lot next door. Davis met her at the top.

“Holy shitz,” she choked. “How did you...?”

“I jumped.”

Right. He jumped.

She shook her head and said, “This is just really…”

“Awkward?”

“At best.”

She kept her eyes away from his face. From his mouth. From that spot below his ear.

“Can we just keep pretending this never happened?” she asked. The sweat on her arms and neck froze under the night air, sending her into a shiver. Davis reached out and ran his hand down her arm, sharing his warmth. She pulled away and laughed bitterly. “See, like that? That shouldn’t happen.”

“What if I want it to?”

“Do you always get what you want?”

His dark eyes locked with hers and he said, “No. Not always.”

“That other night,” she said. “That wasn’t me.”

“No?”

“No.”

He closed the space between them. “Seemed like it to me,” he said, tipping her head toward his. Calling her bluff.

Rightly so, because that was her. That night. The real her. The one she hid from Oliver and Nick and dressed in straight-laced clothes, and sat stoically in Judge Hatcher’s courtroom.

Ari didn’t know how to respond and she didn’t have to, because the back door opened and a crowd of people spilled out into the parking lot. In the center, Ari saw the guy from the floor. She looked from the group to Davis and saw a flicker of concern in his eyes.

“I have to go,” he said. “Your car

is close?”

“Yeah, it’s right there.” Ari clicked the key fob so the lights flashed.

“Are you okay to drive?”

“Yeah, I only had water,” she assured him.

The voices below escalated and she could tell he wanted to go down there. That kid probably was in his crew after all. “Go straight home, okay?”