“And you’re not working it, right?”
Every year since Brynn started working at Whisper Lake High, she’d been one of the staff that chaperoned the Freshman Lock-in. It was a tradition that went back as long as the high school did. Its purpose was to build camaraderie within the class.
Fifty years ago, the freshmen kids would camp out at the lake. Now they all stayed in the gym and there was no “in-out” privileges, terminology Brynn had petitioned to change since the kids loved to make inappropriate jokes about it. They kept the kids busy with team-building activities and provided pizza and snacks. There was a three-to-one kid-to adult supervision and security ratio, which kept things fairly under control.
Brynn was torn over whether or not to be relieved that she didn’t have to endure another night filled with fifty teenagers or sad that she wouldn’t be going the only year her son was. But it was a non-starter for Ryder. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea of her chaperoning.
“No. I’m not.”
“Perfect!” Ali said enthusiastically. “The twins are going, too and Ethan and Kade have their Friday night fantasy football thing at Lanterns, so me and Jess were thinking mini-girls’ night. You in?”
“You’re a newlywed.” Brynn pointed out the obvious. “Don’t you want to take advantage of having the house to yourself?”
“Oh believe me, there will be all kinds of having the house to ourselves advantages taken. The fantasy football stuff will be done by ten.”
A night out with the girls sounded like just what the doctor ordered, even if it was just for a couple of hours. Plus, the alternative would be staying here. Alone. She’d probably just wander around her house hoping to catch a glimpse of Axel through the window.
Again, borderline pathetic.
“I’m in.”
“Perfect.”
She hung up at the same time the doorbell rang. As she walked to the door, her mind wandered back to three weeks ago when she’d sat out on the deck with Axel. Her heartbeat sped, her palms dampened, and her cheeks flushed at the memory.
Okay. It was definitely time to get back up on the dating horse.
***
“Where did youlearn how to do all this?” Ryder asked as he held the drywall in place while Axel drilled the screw into the post.
“One of my stepdads taught me.”
“One of?” Ryder echoed.
“I had a few.”
“How many?”
“Eight.” Axel moved over to the next piece of drywall that was leaning against the wall.
The look of disbelief that crossed Ryder’s face made Axel grin. “Your mom married eight guys?”
It was probably nine by now, but Axel didn’t share that. “Yep.”
Ryder shook his head slowly. “I don’t think my mom’s had eight boyfriends in her whole life.”
Axel tried his best not to have any reaction to that information, keeping his expression blank. He didn’t want Ryder to see just how interested he would be to hear all about Brynn’s dating history. The information he had on it was scarce, to say the least. She’d been married at sixteen, divorced a year later, and…that was it. The trail went cold.
There was no digital evidence of any other relationship that a background check had been able to produce. Axel was not tech-savvy. But Nate Holmes, the computer genius at Elite Security was. The facial recognition program Nate developed was used by the CIA and FBI. It scanned the entire internet, past and present. He knew it was thorough because when Nate was developing it, he’d used Axel as a test subject. It had produced several hits on him of pictures that he hadn’t even remembered taking that were on people’s social media accounts from over a decade before. Some were taken during his Marine days, and some were taken at random bars and events.
Brynn had a very limited social media footprint. That was the terminology Nate used. There were a few pictures she’d been tagged in from friends and with Ryder. But there were none that showed any traces of romantic connections.
Axel wanted more information, but he didn’t want to seem obvious about it.
“Your mom doesn’t date a lot?” he asked as nonchalantly as possible while he measured the next piece of Sheetrock.
“She doesn’t date at all.”