Reluctant thief Baz Barret is tasked with stealing from the formidable archaeologist Rei Collingwood--who happens to also be his college crush and rival--but when Rei goes missing after the burglary, Baz must find her before he's blamed for her disa...
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For the too-many-th time that week, Baz awoke to his phone vibrating.
The sun was already beating through the curtains and for a long, drawn-out moment, he couldn't remember where the hell he was. He'd woken up in too many beds recently, from Gwen's luxurious canopied one to Diego's pull-out couch. He sat up stiffly, his muscles protesting everything he'd put them through.
Baz fumbled for the source of the electronic buzzing, finding it lying on a side table. Rei Collingwood's side table. His hand closed around his phone, charger trailing from it to the wall.
He didn't remember plugging it in, but then, he didn't remember falling asleep on the couch either.
Diego's name popped up on the screen. The time did, too. It was a little after ten.
"Hello?" Baz answered tentatively, not dissimilar to how he might answer the phone if his father was calling him after his curfew.
"Oh, good. You are still alive," Diego said, which wasn't the most comforting opener. A chill ran up Baz's spine.
As his senses came alive again, he looked around the room, hunting for movement. Rei's bed was empty, the sheets mussed. Somewhere, there was the soft hiss of a shower running. It took Baz a moment to realize the panic rising in his chest came from the fear that Rei had disappeared once again, finding another hiding place to escape him.
"As near as I can tell," Baz replied, "is there a particular reason I shouldn't be?"
Diego paused. "You weren't answering your phone, for one. I couldn't assume it just died while you're out who knows where probably getting your damn self killed," he said.
That was fair. Baz really had no argument against that logic. The good news was he wasn't dead and he got to sleep on a couch instead of a park bench or fire escape. He found Rei, albeit without the results he was hoping for. All in all, the night had not fallen into his worst-case scenario.
Nor did it fall into Diego's, which was apparently Baz dead in a dumpster somewhere.
"Pretty sure my phone did die," Baz said.
There was a moment of silence. The water shut off in the bathroom, leaving just the dull hum of a fan running.
"A couple of guys also went into your apartment this morning," Diego added.
Baz sat up a little straighter. That was a development he hadn't expected. It was unnerving to be on the other side of the fence, knowing someone waltzed uninvited into his space. Even while he knew that his efforts to keep Jasper away from the warehouse weren't foolproof, Baz hadn't planned for his own vulnerability in this way.
"What did they look like? What did they do?" Baz stood up, unplugging his phone, too restless to sit still in Rei's studio apartment. He slid open the door he let himself in the night before and stepped onto the balcony.
