Page 43 of The Love Bandits

This is the first I’ve heard that Nicole watches Disney musicals, but my surprise barely registers before I realize what she must mean. “No,” I say. “Absolutely not.”

“Say hello to our new roommate,” she says with a grin, leaning against Damien. “We’re going to be staying here too, obviously.” Shifting her face back toward Jake, she says, “Lainey may have temporarily saved your sorry ass, but you’re on house arrest. You don’t go anywhere, or do anything, without one of us.”

“Then how the fuck am I supposed to get the necklace back?” Jake asks, his expression closing down fast. Gone is the penitent man who let me run my hands all over him to search for a necklace he knew he didn’t have. He looks like a rat caught in a glue trap. Maybe that’s why Professor X is being so sweet to him—empathy is a powerful drug.

Nicole grins at him. “Sounds to me like you and Lainey already figured out how to handle that. You and Lainey are a couple now. You’ll do your group therapy session with the happy couple and the old bird, which I would honestly kill to see. And since there are two of you, one of you can keep the others distracted while the other looks for the necklace. Divide and conquer. Boom. It’s perfect.”

“I don’t think it’s perfect,” Jake objects.

“Then it’s a good thing your opinion doesn’t matter,” Damien says pointedly, resting his elbow on the arm of the couch.

“I can’t stay here.” Jake glances at the front door as if he’s contemplating making a run for it.

“Are you stupid?” Nicole asks him pointedly.

“Maybe. I just got caught by a woman in a knockoff Red Lobster uniform.”

I shoot him a glare.

“Yeah, you did,” Nicole says, holding his gaze. “And Lainey’sdefinitelystupid, because she cares enough about saving your brother’s ass to have risked her own freedom. She could have gotten caught putting the fake in that case. She could still get caught. You may not be happy to be here, but you’re damn lucky.”

Something passes through his gaze, but I can’t read him. I remember what he said in the car earlier.

Damned if know who I am.

As if he’s spent so long pretending he no longer understands what’s real—something I relate to more than I’d like.

“What happens once we get the necklace?”

“That’s above your pay grade, Flynn Rider,” Nicole says. “But my husband and I will work out a plan for getting your brother released and getting the old lady back her Heart of the Mountain.”

“I don’t trust you,” he says starkly.

She laughs. “And I sure as hell don’t trust you. Which is why I’m also going to point out that after we had an intruder last summer, we shored this place up like it’s Alcatraz. Damien and my sister’s boyfriend, the really big guy who lives right next door, had a nice talk with the local police officers about what it means to serve and protect. If an alarm goes off in this place, they’ll be shitting their pants trying to be the first to get here. You break out, they’ll grab you.”

He swallows, looks away before glancing back. “I don’t do well in confinement.”

Nicole gets up, stretches, then says, “You’re a therapist, surely you appreciate the possible benefits of exposure therapy.”

“I need my clothes. My things from the apartment.”

I think of his sketchbooks, tucked carefully away, the comics of him and Ryan. I feel a pulse of unwanted sympathy for him.

“Damien has clothes. You’ll wear his things. We can get you a phone charger, and there are extra toothbrushes and deodorant in the closet. Consider this your Club Med.”

A half smile passes over his face right before he sags in his chair, and I know he’s only pretending the fight’s gone out of him. He’s not going to let this go. He won’t leave a piece of himself behind like that—not when it sounds like he has so few of them left.

“Fine, whatever,” Jake says. “I have to pick up my car. Anthony’s going to get suspicious if I’m parked outside of his old lady’s place for days.”

“This is a full-service prison,” Damien says. “We’ll pick it up for you.”

Jake swears under his breath, but he plucks his keys out of his pocket and throws them to Damien.

“It’s the red Corolla.”

“Wait,” I say, glancing between my friends in disbelief. “You’re leaving me here with him?”

“He’ll be locked in his room, and the window is alarmed,” Nicole says. “You can handle him.”

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