The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (color ebook reader TXT) 📗

he was single. People who look good in sweater-vests are not single, Dylan reasoned, then stopped.

What was she doing? Whether or not he was single and looked good in a sweater-vest was not a concern of hers. Neither were the muscles under the vest. A twinge of guilt crept toward her consciousness, and she bit down on it, jaw tightening. Maybe she could convince Nicolas to give sweaters a try. Not that he would take her advice. But a girl could dream that her boyfriend would try something new every once in a while without—

Dylan cut her relationship musing off midthought. She wasn’t sitting with Mike in this coffeehouse to daydream about his sweater—or anything else, for that matter. Grabbing her notes, she spread them out and started looking for the best easy fixes for Technocore. Dylan felt herself slip into fix-it mode as the chai worked its caffeinated magic on her exhausted mind. She began listing like a woman possessed. Every so often, either she or Mike would reach out and grab another bite of pie. But otherwise they worked in comfortable silence.

She was in the middle of a brainstorm on community image rehabilitation when Mike stood up and stretched his long frame. Pulling her attention away from the page, she looked around to find the café emptying out.

“Looks like they’re shutting down. Are you ready to head out?”

“I guess so,” Dylan said, untucking her feet and setting them on the ground. Holding her mug, she began looking at her piles of papers and wondered how she’d managed to spread out so much.

“Here.” Mike reached out to take her empty mug, gently brushing her hand and sending tingles down her arm. Her eyes shot up and met the flecks of gold in his, her chest squeezing for a fraction of a second. The pause was almost unnoticeable, just long enough for Dylan to wonder if he felt the static, too, when Mike grinned. “Did you want to hang on to it?” he chuckled, lightly pulling the cup from her hands.

“No.” Dylan forced the air back into her lungs, her answer sounding more like a cough than a laugh. He hadn’t felt it. Neale was getting to her. There was no sexy static. She laughed at her imagination as Mike walked to the counter to drop off their mugs.

Dylan carefully replaced her files in her bag to avoid imagining any more electricity between them. “Did you walk here?” she asked over her shoulder, wedging the last file in place.

“Yup. You?”

“Guess we’re walking back together. Don’t let our parents see us.” Dylan watched Mike’s easy expression creep toward a smile and felt relieved. No sparks. She could walk home knowing a moment ago had been a fluke. “How’s the fundraising going?” she asked as she ducked under his arm and out the door, feeling the cold push against her skin.

Mike hesitated, sucking air between his teeth. “Honestly, not well. My museum is in a low-income neighborhood; most big donors don’t know we exist. It’s hard to convince people to invest in something they’ve never heard of before, in a part of town they’ll never go to, for people they’ve never met.” Mike’s scowl deepened as they passed through the golden shimmer of a streetlight, the glow catching the edges of his jaw, reminding her of Bruce Wayne in old Batman cartoons.

“I could help.” Dylan felt herself speaking before she had fully thought about what she was offering.

“Really? Are you an expert in museums too?” Mike laughed, his face relaxing in the pale-gray light left by the cloud-covered moon.

“Well, no. But I’m good with public perception and business-plan assessment,” Dylan answered. She reminded herself that no matter how swamped she felt at Technocore, she should help. Every child, regardless of their financial means, deserved a top-notch learning space.

And then there was Mike. He looked so stuck in the mire. How could she not offer to do something? Surely if she could help Technocore, she could find a way to help him. And it had the added benefit of making amends for all the souls Bernice said she was claiming.

“You mean it?” Mike stopped, and she realized they were in front of her house.

“Of course. I need good karma since I’m working with Technocore. Who knows—maybe your project will balance out all the bad and keep me off hell’s doorstep.” She laughed, butterflies beating erratically in her chest as the weight of Mike’s eyes rested on her.

“Okay.” Mike sounded genuinely surprised. “Feel free to stop by anytime to see the museum in action. No pressure, if you’re too busy.”

“I can stop by Friday afternoon. I heard Tim usually leaves the office by noon, so I should be free.” Dylan waved a dismissive hand and forced herself to sound casual. After all, helping a friend was not a big deal.

“I’d like that.”

For a second Dylan thought he might hug her, and she panicked. It was one thing to get chai with Mike. It was another to go around cuddling him when Nicolas was at home, probably missing her and their email ritual. Taking a deep breath, she tried to capture a few of the more aggressive butterflies in her stomach and reminded herself that hugging an old friend was not cheating, even by Nicolas’s paranoid standards. Mike rocked forward and back on his heels for a second, his hands firmly in his pockets as if he were waiting for something.

That something turned out to be his mother’s floodlight, which snapped on and bathed the street with white light. Dylan jumped back guiltily, as if one of the Robinson women were watching them from behind a curtain. Mike let out a breathy chuckle.

“See you Friday,” he said, lifting his chin toward her disaster of a front lawn.

“See you.” Dylan took another step backward as Mike turned, fishing his car keys out of his bag. Shaking her head, she turned to face the statue-covered yard.

“Hey, Dylan,” Mike called, forcing her to rotate around again. “For the