Page 51 of Defended By Love

“Well, do you feel like flying me up and out of trouble when things inevitably go awry?”

Sighing, Grant merges his car onto the road towards my office.

“Your cavalier attitude towards rules and danger right now certainly isn’t making me fall deeper in love with you and turning me on,” he says through gritted teeth and a half-smile.

I have to turn towards the window because this time, my own smile comes out in full force once I realize his meaning. Clearly, my descent into madness is inevitable. The time loop has done me in: I find his ludicrous devotion to be charming.

Oh well, at least I’m putting the craziness to good use. I mean, I must be a little bit crazy to do what I’m going to do next.

* * *

“Remind me again what the plan is?” Grant asks as we step out of his car and start walking towards the police barricade.

“I’m going to try to talk my way past the barricade and steal as much of their reports on what happened as possible. If I can’t talk my way past, I’m going to just run past.”

Grant stops mid-step and stares at me. “I expected a better plan from you.”

I shrug. “If it doesn’t work, I can always try something new tomorrow.”

“Still.”

“Yeah,” I concede. “Not my best.”

With me in the lead, I try to elbow the reporters out of the way. Even using my pointiest elbow (the right one), it’s not going so well. Until, suddenly, it is. One by one, the person I need to get by stumbles sideways, effectively clearing me an easy, leisurely path forwards.

When I look back at Grant, he winks. Just another perk of having a boyfriend who can control gravitational pull.

I freeze. Except he’s not my boyfriend. A hookup. A light, breezy, one-night stand, who I’ve now spent several days with. Kind of.

Ugh. This is getting messy. This is why I prefer to show up on first dates with a day planner to map out our next year. It would have been wildly convenient, had any of my dates gone for the idea.

Some people just aren’t planners.

“Okay, so if this goes badly,” I whisper over my shoulder to Grant, “I’m going to need you to fly me out of here and—”

Before I’m even at the barricade, at least ten steps away from it, I’m tackled. Strong arms clasp around me, binding me in place.

My heart races. How did they find out about my plan?

“You’re okay!” cries a light voice in my ear.

I pull enough back out of the iron grip to find myself looking at Beth, our office manager. There are literal tears in her eyes as she clings to me.

“Beth?” I ask, trying to pry her off me. “What are you doing?”

Finally, she peels herself off me, looking at me with smudgy makeup eyes and a watery smile.

“Didn’t you get any of my messages?” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving black smears everywhere.

“Your messages?” I pull out my phone. I have a hundred missed calls. Some are from my family, but most are from her. I don’t even dare look at my texts.

“I was so sure that you were going to sneak back into work last night. I know they said that no one used their keycard and the building was secure, but sometimes you do that thing with the door… Oh—I’m just so relieved!”

She pulls me into another suffocating hug. It’s nice and all, but it’s just a lot of energy and a lot of pressure on my stomach that’s eaten the equivalent of three breakfasts this morning, thanks to Shelly.

“Didn’t you see my post?”

“You didn’t make a post,” she says in a tone that shuts down all rebuttals. It’s the well-practiced tone that comes from years of getting lawyers to stop their work to participate in a mandated gingerbread house making competition that has a homemade plaque for a prize.

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