“That’s a good question,” I said, still catching up to her calmly mentioning moving to Texas. “Maybe start in the back, work our way out? We’ll barely put a dent in it today, but it’ll be a start.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she sang. Then began gingerly stepping her way through knee-high piles of garbage. “What about this corner right here?”

I followed close behind. The bare nape of her neck was elegant, a few strands of hair falling out.

Talk about a distraction.

Jaw tight, I tied my bag to the top of the metal fence and shoved the edges out, opening it wide. Tabitha pulled up an old VCR tape with the ribbons hanging down. With an amused shrug, she tossed it in.

“What’s your secret, then?” I asked.

“Coffee. Mascara. And I always wear sunscreen, of course.”

I cocked my head, confused. “What?”

She shoved her sunglasses up into her hair. “You asked me my secret, right?”

I scooped a pile of newspaper. “Yeah. You promised me one.”

She clapped her gloved hands together. “Right. Right, right. I thought you meant, like, what’s your secret to success? So I gave you the first bullshit-y, celebrity-sounding answer I could think of.”

I slid Midge’s gardening shears from my pocket and bent down to tackle a tangle of heavy vines. I ducked my head, hiding a smile. “Mascara though?”

“You can’t see, but I’m batting my gorgeous, mascara-ed eyelashes at you as we speak, Mr. Machine.”

I snipped a vine. Allowed my gaze to float up to Tabitha’s. She was fluttering her eyes at me like a princess. A tattooed princess with a nose ring. “Beautiful,” I said, then ducked my head back down again.

That was twice this morning I’d let myself flirt with Tabitha. She somehow made it easy. Both times had given my body a swift jolt of energy instead of my usual awkward restraint. I didn’t give it much thought. Ever since leaving the ring, my physical instincts were off, confusing and untrustworthy. And I’d once been known as a boxer with perfect reflexes.

“Thank you for that,” she said, with laughter in her voice. “But to answer your actual question…I’m assuming we’ll be sharing a lot of secrets with each other while on this vacant-lot journey.”

I raised a brow at her, unconvinced.

“I’ll save my juiciest ones for later.” She rolled her lips together as she balled up some magazines and tossed them into the bag. “I guess…I hated being a cheerleader. And really hated being head cheerleader my senior year.”

My hands stilled in the vines. I looked up. “Yeah?”