Page 25 of The Love Bandits

A strange strangled sound escapes Anthony, and I glance at him in genuine shock. His face is a rictus of held-back…

Before I can think better of it, I ask, “Are you…laughing?”

He instantly turns his back on his mother—

“No,” he says, although he’s still struggling to keep it together.

Interesting. Maybe there’s more to him, and this situation, than I thought.

“Look,” he says, trying to get control of himself. “I don’t want you to think I’m a dick—”

Too late for that.

“—I don’t give a shit that Nina worked at Red Lobster. Who cares. It’s just…my mother’s shameless, and she’ll stop at nothing… It’s kind of…”

“Funny,” I agree. “But you’d rather die than let her know.”

He nods slightly, his lips tipped upward. “Precisely.”

For the first time since our meet cute, I actually like the guy. Figures that it happens just before it’s time to screw him over.

“So, what’s the plan for the evening?” I ask, clearing my throat.

He rolls his eyes and silently pulls a brochure from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. Silently, I’m guessing, because helooks like he’s swallowing down laughter again. I glance at the program.

6:30 Cocktails and light conversation

7:00 Petting zoo – Anthony’s childhood favorite!

7:30 Seven-course meal

9:00 Games

9:30 Slideshow, followed by dancing

11:00 Farewell toast

“Petting zoo?” I ask, remembering the animal cry I’d heard outside. This could work for me. While everyone’s outside, busy with the inane distraction, I could sneak back into the house, cut the power, and make a run for the necklace.

“I’m not participating, obviously,” he says dryly. “Nina has informed me she’d rather die.”

“But it’s your childhood favorite,” I object with a grin.

He shakes his head, a small smile on his lips. “No…it’s not. It’s another example of my mother amusing herself. We went to a petting zoo once when I was a kid. I got bitten by a donkey, then fell in a pile of manure. My father told me I wasn’t much of a man. Good memory.” He sighs, running a hand across his chin, probably to piss his mother off. “She doesn’t know about that part—he made sure to take me aside for my dressing down—but she knows the rest.”

“Your mother’s vicious,” I say.

His father, too, but I know he passed away when Anthony was young, and most people won’t talk badly of the dead. I’ve never understood that—the way people are sainted just by the act of dying.

“Would you mind going with them?” he asks, his gaze shifting to the door behind my back. “It might be a good chance for you to talk some sense into my mother.”

There goes the petting zoo plan, but it was probably dead in the water anyway if Anthony and Nina aren’t going.

I’ll do it during dinner, I decide.

I can excuse myself and cut the power while everyone’s getting into their salad course or whatever. They’ll freak out. They’ll flail around like slugs in salt, and by the time they get their shit together, I’ll have grabbed the necklace and replaced it with the gumball fake in my pocket.

Except…

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