Page 120 of The Love Bandits

Jake sees me, his eyes rounding with panic, and I realize my mistake when Roark manages to get his hand free and punches my boyfriend in the face.

“No,” I scream. Running forward, I bend down and spray Roark in the face just as Damien and Nicole come racing around the side of the building.

Mrs. Rosings announces like the baller she is, “I will shoot you if you make me, but I’d prefer not to deal with such a mess.”

Roark roars, trying to lift his hands to his face, but Jake pins them. Jake’s nose is dripping blood, and his face has pink spots on it, which means I must have gotten him with some of the spray. But he’s okay. He wasn’t shot.He’s okay.

There are tears in my eyes. Because I’d thought…for a second, I’d thought I’d lost him, and it was as if someone had shut off all the lights and left me in darkness.

Suddenly Damien’s taking over for Jake, and Jake’s standing up. He runs his hands over me, as if he’s worried that I might have spontaneously become injured in between running around the corner and macing his shitty ex-boss. I don’t think, I just lift my sleeve to his nose and hold it there to stop the bleeding, my other hand gripping him because I don’t want to let him go.

I lean in and kiss the side of his mouth, his chin, and his lips, and my face is burning too—the mace rubbing off—and I honestly couldn’t care less.

“You’re okay, you’re okay.”

He laughs, leaning back slightly, one of my sleeves still pressed to his nose.

“Let’s not exaggerate,” he says in a nasal voice. “Can you promise not to mace me the next time you get pissed off?”

“I wasn’t pissed off today,” I say, laughing. Crying a little too.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He kisses my cheek, layering his lips over a tear. “Ryan’s not here, hellcat.”

I glance around, only then registering that Roark must have come alone.

“Is he…”

He runs a hand through my hair, nestling me in close. “I think he’s okay. He got out. He cleaned out the museum and left. Roark…he thinks Ryan’s trying to take over where he left off.”

“And you?” I ask, my heart thumping a faster beat. If Ryan’s going off on his own, will Jake want to join him? Was his time in Marshall just a pit stop?

“I need to go to Connecticut.”

I look up into his eyes, the hope in them nearly turns me to vapor on the spot. He wants to believe that Ryan brought the watch to Dale. He’s hoping the person he’d pinned his world on before he met me won’t let him down the way everyone else always has.

I’m hoping so too, because I want to like his brother, and if Ryan has screwed this up, I might just mace him on purpose.

“Will you go with me?” Jake asks.

“Of course.”

“I love you,” he whispers, kissing me beneath the ear, in a spot that instantly radiates the feeling throughout my body.

“I love you back,” I say. “I was so scared something had happened to you.” My voice is trembling, and he pulls back slightly to smile at me, leaving my shirt smeared with blood. It’s stopped dripping from his nose, so hopefully it’s not broken.

“I saw you,” he says playfully. “You were pretty fucking scary, charging in with that mace. My life flashed before my eyes.”

I know he’s joking to defuse the moment, to soothe my fear, and more love for him floods me. “You didn’t already know I was scary?”

“Oh, I knew you were scary after you trashed my apartment. Or before, when you were disrespecting Professor X with all of that baby talk.”

“Good,” I say, leaning in to kiss his jaw, the side of his face. “But what are we going to do about my shirt? It’s covered in blood.”

He pulls back slightly, then pulls his own shirt off and tugs it over my head.

“The bloody one’s underneath,” I hiss, before removing it and pulling it out of the top of his shirt. “And you’re going to get hypothermia.”

“It’s barely cold enough for goosebumps, and I didn’t want you to have to flash your old boss.”

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