“Nate?”
“Hmm?” He pulled out of their parking space and onto the main road.
“You know anything about the allegedly ‘bogus phone’?” She’d been focused on Gloria during the confrontation, but she’d noticed Nate’s mouth quirk up at that line.
“Nope.” There went that mouth quirk again. “Why would I?”
Kris tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the car door armrest. “Too bad. I had a fun reward in mind if you had.” She shrugged. “Oh, well.”
“What kind of reward?” Suspicion tempered Nate’s tone, like he was sure he was walking into a trap but couldn’t help himself.
She smiled sweetly. “Did I ever tell you I have basically no gag reflex?”
She’d given him BJs before, of course, but she’d been saving that fun little tidbit for a special occasion.
The car swerved to the right before Nate corrected it. “No,” he wheezed.
“Well, I don’t.” Kris feigned a yawn. “I used to experiment with all sorts of things to see if they’d trigger the reflex—bananas, cucumbers, carrots. But nope. I can take them all.”
Nate’s grip tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “Are youtryingto get us killed?” he growled.
“No.” Kris upped the saccharine in her smile. “I’m trying to get to the bottom of this ‘bogus phone’ deal.”
“You don’t play fair.”
“Fairness is for losers.”
Nate huffed out a laugh. “Fine.” He glanced at her quickly before refocusing on the road. “I planted the phone with Risa’s help. Turns out she’s not a big fan of Gloria—said something about Gloria insulting her roasted chicken and making off-color comments? Plus, she likes me and felt bad about what happened between you and your father. Anyway, she caught Gloria and her trainer arguing one day when Roger was out of the house. From what she could tell, they reallyhadbeen hooking up, but Gloria broke things off after Roger arrived and the trainer was pissed. She’d been ignoring his calls, so he showed up at the house and Gloria freaked. Risa didn’t catch any of this on camera, but she called me—”
“Wait.” Kris held up her hand. “Why does she have your number, and why did she call you instead of me?”
“We bonded over her banana bread, and she knew you were already in trouble for our, er, earlier scheme so she didn’t want to drag you into another mess.”
“You exchanged numbers because of…banana bread?”
Nate shot her a slightly affronted look. “Yes, it’s very good banana bread, but that’s not the point. The point is, she called and told me. We didn’t try to wait for evidence again, because we didn’t have time, so I asked Teague for help. Apparently, he’s an amateur hacker—the guy has way too many hobbies—and he doctored the messages and included a few photos that were on Gloria’s real phone’s camera roll. Not naked photos. Just, uh, suggestive ones that go with the fake messages, because we couldn’t find any actual messages between her and her trainer.”
Kris was speechless. It was happening more and more frequently, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Butthis… “That is so underhanded and evil. I love it.” Then she frowned. “Wait.Teaguehelped you? When did you speak with Teague?”
A sheepish expression took over Nate’s face. “I may have looked up his contact info and paid him a visit to talk.”
“To talk.”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“About him never touching you again unless he wanted me to break his fingers,” Nate said casually.
“Nate Reynolds!”
The guilt morphed into a smirk. “He got the message. He’s not so bad—as long as he’s not touching you.”
Kris groaned. “You’re insufferable. He’s myfriend.”
“He can be your friend without pawing you like he did at Sky’s soccer game.”
“We’ll discuss this later. The conversation is not over.” But there was a more pressing issue at hand. “Why would you, Risa, and Teague do that? Help me with Gloria, I mean.”