Page 121 of The Love Bandits

“Yes, thank you for that,” Mrs. Rosings says dryly, reminding me that she’s witnessed this whole mess of a scene. “However, now we’re all getting an eyeful ofyou.”

“Oh, come on, Mrs. Rosings,” Nicole says, looking up from the trunk of the car, which is now open. I was so lost in Jake that everything around us had faded away, but the details are filling back in, like the shading in one of his drawings. “You can’t possibly expect us to believe you object to Jake walking around shirtless.” Still, she throws him a shirt from his bag in the trunk. “The things I do for the elderly.”

I glance at Damien, who’s tying Roark up with what looks like mud-brown ribbon.

“Is that…ribbon?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Rosings says with a sniff. “I was going to ask you to use it to decorate the chairs for Anthony and Nina’s wedding, but that’s obviously moot. We’ll have to cancel the plans, of course.”

“Hang onto it,” Jake says, his eyes on me. “And don’t cancel everything just yet. The Love Fixers are going to find him a wife. After we go to Connecticut.”

“We’re going on a road trip?” Nicole asks. “Cool. But I get to choose the playlist. That’s a hard rule.”

“Be forewarned,” Damien says, smiling at her as he finishes tying Roark’s hands and feet with the ribbon. “She likes showtunes.”

“Are you going to leave me tied up like this?” Roark roars. “It could take hours for someone to find me.”

“Oh, I hope it takes way longer than that,” Nicole says, approaching him and then wagging her finger in his face. “And I hope you’ll think about this,many times, if you ever consider fucking any of us over. And remember…we could have ruined you, but we didn’t. Even though you pulled a gun on our boy, we’ve enabled you to carry on with your sad little life. You’re welcome. But guess what? If you so much as steal a stick of gum, I’m coming for you. You start shouting before the count of three hundred? That’s not going to work out for you well either.”

We bringthe cars to an overlook off the highway so we can decide what comes next, picking a corner of the lot far away from the tourists exclaiming over the hazy view of the changing leaves.

Mrs. Rosings wants to go home to check on Anthony, and Nicole and Damien agree to go with her and leave their car with us. Which is to say, I convince them to leave, against their inclination, because I need to do this alone with Jake.

Before they pack into Mrs. Rosings’s car to leave, Nicole points to both of her eyes, then swivels her fingers around to point at Jake. “You’re bringing it back, lover boy. I like this car. The cushion has an imprint of my ass.”

“Far be it from me to rob you of your ass imprint.”

She cuffs him on the arm, grinning like the cat that ate the canary and then spat out its feathers. “You like me.”

“You like me back.”

“I liked you better before that guy made your nose look like a squashed tomato.”

“So did I,” I tease, wrapping my arm around his shoulders. I can’t stop touching him, reminding myself that he’s still here, that his body didn’t get seriously hurt, even if what happened has messed with his mind. I know the sound of that bullet will stay with me for a long time.

“You’d better be careful,” Nicole tells him, waggling her eyebrows. “Lainey may decide to swap you for the bizarro version of you.”

“Can we please leave?” Mrs. Rosings says with a groan. “I’m ready to sleep in my own bed tonight. That hotel we stayed in last night wasghastly.”

Actually, at her insistence, it was a four star hotel with a bed more comfortable than the one I have at home, but Mrs. Rosings is nothing if not a woman with impossible standards.

“Are you going to talk the entire way back?” Nicole asks her with a sigh.

“Yes,” Jake and I say at the same time.

Surprising me once again, Mrs. Rosings actually laughs and then adds, “But I do love a good showtune.”

“That makes two out of three of us,” Damien says as he slips in behind the wheel. Mrs. Rosings has made it clear that despite owning the car, she prefers never to drive. That job always falls to whatever paid employee, offspring, or unsuspecting soul happens to be around when she needs to go somewhere.

We watch as the others get in and they drive away.

Once they’re gone, Jake turns toward me, wrapping both arms around me. He cleaned up in the bathroom at the overlook, but his nose is swollen, and it looks like he’s going to have two black eyes. But he’s alive, and he’smine. “I was thinking we could stop at my apartment in Manhattan to get my stuff. If that’s okay with you.”

“Of course,” I say. “I want to snoop shamelessly. It seems only fair.”

“Because you already snooped shamelessly when I was Jake Jeffries?” he asks, then leans in to kiss my forehead.

“Yes, I require a thorough snooping.”

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