Page 103 of Ride or Die

“God, you’re jumpy. It’s valid. But still,” Kristi said, putting her work bag down with a grunt. It had two laptops and a giant case law textbook amid a forest of straws from several different drink containers.

The bag itself was an agent of chaos.

“You would be too.” Riley folded her arms, brittle heat creeping into her belly. She’d told Kristi what had happened with Gio over the phone, but not about the stalking.

“Why are you here?”

Kristi yanked out her laptop and opened it. “Take a seat. I have a presentation for you.”

“About what?” Riley pushed her discarded dinner dishes to the side and sat at her little kitchen table.

“About red flags. For all the men in your life. And what you should do instead. Or we, technically. I have a plan.” Kristi set up the laptop on the counter and clicked into presentation mode. Riley stared at her.

“‘All’ makes it sound slutty,” Riley said and folded one leg over the other.

“I wish you were being slutty. Honestly,” Kristi said, then clicked to the first page of the presentation. It was titled How to spot red flags in your hot boyfriend and equally hot boss.

Riley snorted a laugh. “I can’t wait.”

A stick figure popped up, labelled “Saint,” dancing against a red background.

Kristi used her lawyer voice. “Item number one: I couldn’t find a single picture of Saint online to make his intro slide. He has no social media, no newspaper articles, no website. And he runs his own business. A custom bike shop with no online presence whatsoever? Sus.”

Riley bit her cheek. “Just because he isn’t online doesn’t mean anything. I never update my socials.” Kristi also didn’t know about the whole biker situation, and Riley couldn’t hear “I told you so” again.

“Ah!” Kristi snapped her fingers. “But you do have socials. And don’t worry, you’re in here too. Your online presence is a nightmare.”

“Everything is private!”

Kristi gave her a look.

Riley couldn’t help but laugh. If she didn’t laugh, she might start to cry. Saint not being online was the least of her problems.

She glanced over at her old keys hanging on the key hook by the door. She’d found them in the weedy garden bed at the front of her building when she’d arrived home today. She had no hope that she was getting her purse back.

She was going to have to get all new IDs, cards, everything. She pinched her nose. What a fucking nightmare.

“Item number two: Saint is far too calm about item number three, the Dark Prince of Fraud. He knows more than he’s saying, and he’s keeping it from you.”

“Is this random speculation on an Excel file?” Riley asked with more of a snap than was warranted. She kept going on back and forth on how realistic this was. Could Kristi really have found evidence for money laundering?

You’re being naive.

Kristi narrowed her eyes. “Don’t turn this back on me. This is about you and your inability to detect danger.”

“You went home with Aaron. Does he not have a slide? Because he should.” He was a jaguar in human skin.

“I am grooming Aaron to become my friend,” Kristi snapped. “I’m not fucking him and moving into his house and letting him change my apartment locks and install a security system that he has access to.”

“Yet.”

Riley’d seen how they looked at each other. Why couldn’t she be into Wheeler? He seemed sensible. Kind of.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response. You are not thinking critically. At all.”

We’re doing this? Now?

Kristi glared.