Page 55 of In the Cover of Darkness

“You'll be fine. We're going to have a boring uneventful day serving coffee, and then we're going home to drink wine and get drunk,” she says, squeezing me back, “and your bodyguard has a special seat over there.”

Turning, I see Nova pointing to a seat at the side of the coffee cart, but staring directly at Dante who is standing nearby.

“Good morning to you too Nova,” Dante says as he takes an almond croissant from the food on display and walks to where the chair is before moving it away and standing in its place. “Put it on my tab,” he says, waving the croissant in the air.

“You don't have a tab,” she mumbles, as I make coffee for both of us.

Bringing it to him, I place a hand on his chest and stretch up on my toes to give him a quick kiss, him leaning down to close the distance between us.

I'm about to walk away when he stops me, his hand holding my arm before moving up to my face, his fingers tilting my chin toward him.

“I love you, baby,” he says, as his eyes search my face. Taking his hand I kiss his palm, breaking eye contact as soon as I can, whispering, “I love you too,” into it, before walking back to Nova.

The Spring Festival turns out to be the most amazing distraction. There are locals almost every few minutes coming up and chatting with us as we make their coffees, and I'm blown away by how many tourists there are. The one field and playground the town has is brimming with people buying things from the different stalls, relaxing with family and just having a good time. I've tried not to be distracted with Dante standing to the side of us, watching the crowd and our customers. For the most part, he has been well behaved, and as the day progressed only noted two times where I could see he was on the verge of stepping in when a couple different groups of drunk guys walked by. Thankfully, for their sake, they walked past us, or else I'm under no illusions that blood would have been spilled. Things are slowing down now though and Nova and I are slowly packing up as we sell out of things.

Busying myself by stacking some dirty display trays in the large containers we used for easy storage, I almost missed itwhen Ace sped past me heading straight for Dante. I watch them talk for a minute before he calls for both Nova and me to join them, a desperation in his tone making us both stop what we were doing.

“They have him,” Dante says, holding my face in his hands. “There was a sighting of him checking into a motel room down in Woodman, the sheriff and his men have a search warrant and are about to breach his room now.”

Ace holds his phone out and puts it on speaker. We can hear rustling sounds before several different people are yelling, it sounds like chaos over the phone, but there is suddenly a loud bang of wood splitting before a person saysclearas they check the room. Thankfully I've seen enough cop shows to have a basic understanding of how they check a room.

There are some murmurs and more rustling before the familiar voice of Sheriff Miller comes on the line.

“Ace, it's me. The room’s clear but he's locked himself in the bathroom … he says he's got a bomb in there with him.”

There is a long pause and I'm dumbfounded that any of this is even happening.

“He doesn't know how to make a bomb,” I whisper. “He's a car salesman, not a fanatic.” Covering my face with my hands, I try to gather my thoughts and keep my emotions in check. The last thing anyone needs is to look after me on top of what Trevors doing down in Woodman. Nova has moved us a few feet away from where Ace and Dante continue to talk with the Sheriff on the phone.

“Tell me about the first blow job you ever gave?”

“What? What … why … Nova what the fuck?”

“Just do it. Fuck what's happening with Trevor, tell me about your first blow job.”

“Um, okay. I well ..." I look over to Dante and I think it's the first time I've ever seen him completely focused on something else. He's in work mode and it calms me to see him thrive like this. His back is straight, face in a serious frown; with him and Ace snapping out questions, barely stopping to let the Sheriff answer.

Shaking my shoulders gently, Nova brings my attention back to her. “I vomited on him,” I deadpan. “His name was Oscar, and I snuck out of home to meet him. Neither of us knew what we were doing and he just shoved it in, hitting the back of my throat. I wasn't ready and just projectile vomited on him. I was completely mortified and ran home crying.” Smiling now, at the memory of how grown up you feel when you're a teenager, but ultimately have no clue.

“See, nothing like a shitty blowjob to give you some perspective,” she says, smiling at me.

“Nova, I literally have no idea what you're talking about right now,” I laugh.

“Does it matter? You got distracted, you've refocused and you're hopefully thinking a little clearer.”

“Thank you,” I breathe, just as Dante and Ace approach us.

“You're smiling,” he says, coming up next to me and taking my hand in his.

“We were talking about blowjobs,” Nova tells him, a shocked look flashing across his face.

“We're going to talk about that later,” he says, looking at me, one eyebrow raised. “How much do you want to know?”

“Everything Dante, I don't like being left in the dark, especially when it's my life we’re talking about,” I scowl.

Nodding, both he and Ace at least look a fraction sheepish over what I just said, hopefully letting him know that he shouldn't keep anything from me.

“Trevor is currently locked in the bathroom of his motel room. He says he has a bomb in there with him that will go off if we breach the room. He also says he has a second bomb on a timer that he's hiding somewhere in Hidden Valley. With the festival going on and the amount of extra people in town we can't risk his bluff.”

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