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Ronan’s doing a final sweep of their monitors for the night—Gansey already snoring gently beside him in the most uncomfortable position—when someone knocks on the front shutter.
He ignores it, just like he’s ignored all the other hits, kicks, curses, and rocking of the food van all night. Ever since they’d parked, actually, a surprising number of drunken students had pounded on the food truck shouting about wanting food.
This knocking sounds strangely more polite, softer, and more rhythmic. Less pounding by drunken frat boy and more knocking in hungry curiosity. Ronan swears at it anyway.
They’re setting up on campus to find a hacker whose talents and skills Gansey wants to obtain. A hacker who has already been into the kind of dark web files they need to access to finally take down the Greenmantles and their evil minions.
Although Henry liked to help them out—particularly Gansey and Blue, but Ronan made loud retching noises when the three of them were in a room together flirting—he was often traveling and working for his mother.
Gansey had decided they should recruit their own personal hacker, one they can trust, and hopes to find him or her then entice, bribe, or blackmail them into helping the crew and joining their noble cause.
Henry had actually found the proof of the hacker they were stalking and had thrown his support behind acquiring them. Although Gansey was surprised when Henry’s trail led them to a state university rather than an Ivy or tech school.
The knocking has continued, and Ronan is suddenly fed up. Gansey is still softly snoring, now curled over his precious journal of plans.
Ronan strides over to the window and jerks up the shutter enough so he can duck down and shout, “We’re fucking closed!”
Once the shutter is up far enough, he can see the young man who’s been knocking.
The pole light across the narrow campus street lights him in shadows, but Ronan sees enough. The guy’s probably around his age, obviously a student with his flannel over a tee shirt and baggy jeans. Ronan’s first thought of his face is ethereal, spectral, sharp cheekbones and big eyes, and he looks fucking exhausted.
“Hey, you got anything left?” his warm accent reminds Ronan of home.
“Nope, we’re closed,” Ronan says. “That’s why the shutter is closed and the lights are off.”
“Actually,” the boy drawls, “your lights are on in there.”
Ronan glances over his shoulder to where the monitors are glowing. “We’re cleaning,” he says shortly.
“Look,” the boy sighs in weariness, “do you have anything at all to eat? I’ve spent all night in the library, missed supper, and I’m too tired to walk to the convenience store.”
“I thought college students lived off ramen and shit,” Ronan admits.
The boy snorts, and Ronan falls a little in love. “Typically we do, but I’m all out and I’m way too tired to bike to the grocery store. Don’t you have a sandwich left over or something?”
“Fuck,” Ronan says. He glances around the small prep area and back at the boy. “Fuck,” he repeats, “gimme a damn minute.”
Ronan pulls the shutter down most of the way so the boy can’t see in while he paws through the meager supplies in the truck.
“Why are you parked here overnight?” the boy asks. “I’ve never seen you around before.”
“Want to get a jump on business tomorrow,” Ronan lies and hates himself for it, although he prevaricates that they are trying to get a jump on tracking the hacker.
“Ah,” the boy says. “So what do you sell anyway?”
“Food,” Ronan says, frantically searching for something edible. The only thing he finds is his own meal for later, which he was planning to enjoy in the next few hours while he monitored web activity on this part of campus.
The boy snorts again. Ronan throws up the shutter with a rattle. He passes over the brown paper bag with his super roast beef sub and the spicy ranch chips and the chocolate chip cookie and his bottled mango green tea. Since Gansey slept through the whole interaction, offering zero assistance, Ronan snags his ridiculous green drink too.
“Shit,” the boy says, peering into the bag. “How much is this?”
“Five dollars.”
The boy looks up, mouth open. “Are you kidding me? For this?”
Ronan shrugs. “Three?”
The boy’s pretty eyes widen.
Ronan swears. “Ten? Just give me whatever the fuck you have.”
The boy opens a battered wallet held together with duct tape and hands over a ten. Ronan holds it up to the street light as if he’s checking it for counterfeit—as if he knew what to look for—just to be obnoxious, and the boy sighs.
“G’night, and, uh, thanks.”
It’s Ronan’s turn to snort as he slams down the shutter. He knocks into Gansey’s chair as he heads to the driver’s seat, but Gansey doesn’t awaken until Ronan starts the engine.
“What? What’s going on?”
“We gotta move. Been made,” Ronan says shortly. He sees the boy still standing there under the street light in the side view mirror, holding the bag of food and watching him drive away.
The next day, Ronan breaks into the campus security office which—he is happy to say with total honesty—ironically has very little security. He borrows the stuff he needs and starts strolling around the computer labs in his new uniform, keeping one ear on the team and his eyes on the lookout for anything suspicious.
Blue infiltrates the school’s IT department with her usual ease. First she’s a visiting instructor, harried and hurried, snapping at professors and TAs alike, asking for more information on the brief list of likely students they’d compiled, acting like she needs the background for the classes she claims she’s going to teach.
Then after a hair and costume change, she’s a sorority student, giggly and flirty, asking the questions to the rest of the staff, trying to find out as much as possible about not only the students but the possibility that the hacker could be a member of staff instead.
Noah drops into the computer labs to add Henry’s super high-tech devices that will somehow route shit to their van instead. Ronan tries telling him that he can literally just walk in because even though he’s the oldest of them, Noah definitely can pass for a college student. Noah says his way is way more fun, and Ronan can’t argue with that.
Gansey dons his usual cloak of legitimacy and sweeps into the donors department, shaking hands with upper faculty members, using his family clout and bright white smile to charm them and gain more information without actually promising a sizable donation to the school’s endowment fund.
They meet back at their centralized undercover location—aka the damn food truck that Ronan’s already growing to hate—and share notes. There aren’t that many computer-related degrees available and even fewer potential hackers from the students majoring there. And they all agree that the staff can’t be ruled out, but none of them actually stand out in either ability or motive.
Gansey decides they’ll continue to circle the computer departments as well as the dorms nearby, concentrating on the students and their extracurricular computer usage.
And since they’re trying to maintain their cover, they open the shutter in late afternoon and actually serve food that they’ve bought from other restaurants because they all agree they’re not eating anything the others have cooked.
Blue and Noah are taking orders and handing out chicken and iced tea when Ronan hears the melodious accent from the night before.
“Do you have a roast beef sandwich? Uh, instead of chicken?”
Oh shit, it’s Pretty Boy. Ronan definitely doesn’t take off his headphones and roll his chair closer to the food prep area to eavesdrop.
“Beef? No way, man, we’re Chicken Out. We’re all about chicken here!” Noah starts listing all the possible ways they can serve him second-hand chicken.
The boy laughs, and Ronan’s stupid heart skips a beat. “What about a mango ice tea?”
“We have the best sweet tea around, and we can give you lemon, but no mango,” Blue says. “If you’re looking for such a particular meal, looks like you’ll have to try someone else. But that would be a real shame to lose a customer as cute as you.”
Even though Ronan knows she only flirts to keep up her act, he’s irrationally jealous that she’s out there just casually talking to Pretty Boy and making him chuckle and flirt back. Even Noah joins in the flirting and laughing back and forth.
“I am sorry, but we really only do have chicken and tea,” Blue is saying.
“It’s our whole gimmick,” Noah agrees.
“I was here last night,” Pretty Boy says. “There was a grumpy asshole kinda guy working.”
Ronan shuts his eyes and curses under his breath. There’s a long beat as Blue and Noah probably exchange loaded glances.
“Yeah, he’s our night crew,” Noah says as Blue says, “He’s our cleaner. And yeah, a real asshole.”
Pretty Boy just laughs again and orders the chicken and waffle and sweet tea. When they are handed to him, Ronan hears the smile in his voice as he says, “I sure am glad the day crew is a lot friendlier. And prettier. Have a nice day.”
Ronan is back to staring intensely but unseeingly at the computers when Noah and Blue crowd in behind him. He ignores them until Noah flicks his ear and says, “You’re going to ruin the reputation of my food truck if you keep treating the customers like shit.”
“Yeah, Lynch, why’re you acting like an asshole to customers?” Blue asks. “You weren’t even supposed to open last night.”
“And why was he asking about food we don’t have?”
Ronan wrenches his headphones off again and gets up, his chair rolling away to bang against the metal wall. “I’m not the one who’s supposed to be getting interrogated. I’m doing another walk-through now.”
“He was pretty cute though,” Noah calls after him as he pushes out the van door, their giggles making his ears burn.
The next day, Ronan is taking another slow lap of campus in his security guard kit and sees Pretty Boy hurrying into the building that houses the English department. Ronan leans against a tree and watches him take the steps two at a time then slow down to hold the door open for a female student.
Figures that Pretty Boy would be an English major. Ronan wonders if he’s studying to be a writer or a journalist or a teacher. Or maybe a poet, with his winsome, big eyes and delicate features.
Features Ronan sees late that night when he’s there again, banging on the food truck shutter.
Ronan was smart enough after the first night to install a simple camera on the exterior of the truck so he can glance at who’s knocking before cursing them. When he sees it’s Pretty Boy, he curses at himself then opens the shutter.
“Look,” Ronan says, and leans his elbows casually on the counter, “when you’ve had a long night out partying, just go to Waffle House like every other drunkard. They actually want to deal with you.”
“I don’t even drink,” Pretty Boy says, and Ronan’s sure it’s true because his eyes are just as clear and sparkling as they were the first time they met.
“Then what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Lookin’ for food,” Pretty Boy steps even closer to the truck. “Just a sandwich. Or a waffle. It’s been a long night in the library.”
“What’re you, an English major?” Ronan asks, curiosity getting the better of him.
Pretty Boy’s head tilts. “Why do you say that?”
Ronan shrugs, suddenly remembering that he can’t admit that he saw him on the other side of campus. “You look like a poet,” he blurts out instead. “But you have hands like an artist. Or your face, it’s pretty enough to be a model.”
Pretty Boy laughs loudly. “Holy shit, is it part of your company training to teach you how to flirt with your customers? Because your day staff is pretty flirty too.”
“We’re just honest,” Ronan says stiffly, embarrassed that his attempts at complimenting this pretty and very interesting boy just got lumped in with Blue and Noah’s everyday casual teasing.
The change in Ronan triggers Pretty Boy to stop laughing and look at Ronan more carefully.
“I’m a psych major,” Pretty Boy finally says.
“You wanna be a shrink?”
“I wanna help people,” he corrects.
Ronan turns away and flips on the grill. Pretty Boy doesn’t try to banter or say anything else while Ronan grabs what he needs and after a few minutes, presents him with two perfectly golden grilled cheese sandwiches.
“This isn’t remotely what I ordered or wanted,” Pretty Boy reaches out for them anyway.
“But it’s what you’re gonna get,” Ronan says and pushes the largest container of sweet tea he could find that Pretty Boy accepts as well.
“Well, fuck you,” Pretty Boy says.
“Fuck you too,” Ronan automatically shoots back, and he grins at Ronan and if Ronan wasn’t such a hardass, he’d clutch his chest because he swears he can feel Cupid’s arrow go right through his heart.
The next day, Blue and Noah are ready to move on and tell Gansey as much. They haven’t found so much as a trace of the hacker, and Gansey wonders aloud if they were somehow tipped off and either moved locations or shut down operations all together.
Ronan is bored and doesn’t think there’s anything on this godforsaken campus to uncover anyway, but no one asks him for his professional opinion.
After the rest of the group concurs with Gansey, they agree to keep an eye on things one more evening before calling it quits.
They close the food truck around nine, and Noah goes to haunt the computer labs that Henry had suggested before. Blue and Gansey walk around together posing as college students and talk to the few students they have as suspects.
Ronan stays behind to keep staring at all the computer screens and ignore the outside noise that indicates the frat parties are already heating up. Frankly, the only thing keeping Ronan in the van is the thought of opening up to Pretty Boy, and if he ordered two of the beef sandwich combos, that’s no one’s business but his own.
Then a loud beeping makes Ronan jerk alert and he cycles through the computer screens until he sees code rapidly appearing on one of them. Gansey’s voice in his ear is squawking questions, and Ronan tries to narrow down which monitor is showing what.
Gansey talks to him and Blue via comms, apparently using his cell phone that Henry set up to see what Ronan’s seeing. Gansey takes over once the location is pinpointed, directing Noah to the computer lab nearest the food truck. Unfortunately, the camera that Noah had planted in the lab has been disabled, another clue pointing to this being the real deal.
As Ronan grabs some gear, Gansey says he and Blue will meet them there.
Ronan’s heart is beating in his throat as he rushes toward the computer lab where Gansey believes the hacker is even now infiltrating a protected website. It’s his true role to protect Gansey, to protect the entire team, and Ronan has taken a vow with himself to live up to that promise. He never wants something to happen to his team on his watch, not even something as stupid as Noah stubbing his toe.
That’s why it fuels his anxiety to be walking into the situation blind. Who knows what awaits them? Who knows what the hacker might be capable of or what weapons they might hold?
Ronan wants to be the first on the scene, to go in first to evaluate and, if necessary, neutralize any threats.
Instead, he literally runs into Gansey and over Blue in the doorway to the building, resulting in some swearing and pushing, but he makes sure he’s the first one into the room of the computer lab.
Only there’s no one there.
He holds his arm out to block the others crowding in behind him while he sweeps the room visually again. Still no humans in sight.
Blue is already under his arm and walking down the first aisle of computers. Ronan grabs at her, but then Gansey pushes around him and enters as well.
Ronan takes the perimeter of the room and swings around when the noise of one of the ceiling tiles being removed reaches him. He relaxes just a bit when Noah’s head appears and gives the all clear from above.
Noah gracefully drops into the room behind the last row of computers and freezes. “Uh, guys? I think you might want to see this?”
They hurry over to him, and Blue is the first one to spot it. The computer that’s showing the same scroll of fast-moving code Ronan had seen is still moving. But there’s no one at the keyboard. Just the tiny green pinpoint that shows that a camera is activated.
They all duck back, Ronan swearing, but they know the truth. “We’ve been made,” Blue says.
“Everyone, back to the truck now. Spread out; take different routes,” Gansey orders.
Ronan sprints to the door but waits until the others have left the building before he starts walking briskly. He knows that Gansey makes sense, but he still wishes they’d escaped together so he could watch all their backs.
He’s timed it so he’s the last one to the truck, and Gansey already has the engine rumbling, ready to go. Just as Ronan tumbles in and pulls the door shut behind him, a knock pounds on the side shutter.
Noah and Blue look at each other and then at Ronan. He slides on brass knuckles, cracks his neck, and opens the shutter.
Of course, it’s Pretty Boy. Standing there under the damn streetlight looking as ethereal and otherworldly as always. Only now his arms are crossed over his chest, and his entire body posture has changed from loose and relaxed to tight and angry.
“Too late for food,” Ronan says. “We’re leaving.”
“The hell you are,” Pretty Boy says. “Not until you explain what the fuck you’re doing.”
“Selling shit,” Ronan says then winces when Blue kicks his shin. “Food. Chicken.”
“No, why you’re stalking me. What are you? CIA? Interpol? You seem too young to be international bounty hunters, but too inept to be military or government trained.”
“Excuse you—” Ronan’s own anger catches up.
The engine of the food truck cuts off abruptly, and Gansey steps up next to Ronan.
“Good evening,” Gansey says warmly. “You’re right. We have been looking for you. We’d like to speak with you. Won’t you join us?”
He gestures toward the back of the van then nudges Ronan. He has to push Ronan harder before Ronan swears under his breath and heads to open the rear door.
Pretty Boy is still looking up at Gansey, clearly unsure what to do, then he walks to the back door. He looks around warily then climbs in, ignoring Ronan’s hand he extended without thought.
“Have a seat,” Gansey invites and indicates the stool beside Blue. “We’re happy to finally meet you. We only know you as Magician. What is your name?”
Pretty Boy lifts beautiful, defiant, sparkling eyes and looks them all over thoroughly before turning to Gansey. He says, “Adam Parrish.”
Gansey takes a seat in front of him. “Well, Mr. Parrish, we are embarking on a quest and we are in dire need of a computer specialist. Word has it you are a true virtuoso. What do you need from us to join our team?”
Parrish’s eyes flit over each of them again as he apparently tries to take all this in. Ronan should’ve known his brain would match beauty because Parrish shrugs and says, “That depends on what you have to offer. And exactly what this quest is.”
Ronan snorts and slaps the sandwich and chips down beside Adam. “Better get comfortable,” he says gruffly as Adam glances up at him.
Gansey smiles, his warm genuine boyish grin, and leans forward. “Tell me, Mr. Parrish, what do you know about Colin and Piper Greenmantle?”
Adam’s entire body jolts more upright, and Ronan knows he’s already sold. The only thing that’s left is to determine is the price.
And somehow, this entire quest is looking even better.