Page 72 of The Love Bandits

JAKE

Elaine needs to be comfortable around me. She needs to know she can trust me.

That’s the verdict I’ve made after spending half the morning pretending to work on websites on Jake Jeffries’s laptop in my bedroom while reliving that moment in the back of the hatchback over and over again, her sweet taste still in my mouth.

She needs to realize she can trust me, and then she’ll be able to come.

Because now I have another mission, in addition to obtaining the Heart of the Mountain—

That fuckhead, Todd, screwed with Elaine’s head and her heart, and I’m going to help her throw off the last of him.

I’ve already decided I’m going to steal all of his other beloved belongings when I get back to New York. Not to resell them, but to break them, one by one, and ship the ruins to him.

I’m going to screw withhishead, the way he screwed with hers. I’m going to break him.

Then maybe I’ll beat the shit out of him for good measure.

Why I care so much would be quite the question if I were really a therapist. So it’s a good thing I’m not.

After reaching this epiphany, I close up the work I wasn’t really doing in the room that isn’t really mine, and go downstairs to look for Nicole. I find her in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee the size of a child’s head while she studies her phone with a frown. She has bedhead and a shirt readingLooking will cost you.

“What do you want?” she asks without glancing up. “I should warn you that it’s much too early for bullshit.”

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Precisely.”

Fair enough. I’ve never been much of a morning person myself. There’s no sign of Damien, but I don’t ask where he is. She has no reason to tell me.

“I’d like to do something for Lainey. Is there any work I can do for The Love Fixers?”

Her first reaction is to laugh, which isn’t promising.

“Ask, and it shall be delivered,” she says next, which doesn’t clarify anything.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“It’s a halle-fucking-lujah that I don’t have to do it myself. I was just looking at the answers to our Craigslist ad, and it’s a whole lot of nope for me. So, yeah, if you want to help her, this is the ticket.” She shoves her phone at me, and sure enough, there are at least twenty emails on the screen.

The subject lines are full of exclamation points and the word “fuck.”

I whistle, suddenly doubtful. “You think a bunch of wronged women will be willing to deal with a man?”

Nicole snorts as she gives me an up-and-down appraisal. “Oh, you’ll do just fine. They’ll take one look at you and forget the guy’s name. Besides, this will free me up so I can spend more time poking into your background.”

“Fantastic,” I say, rolling my eyes. I go to take the phone, and she waggles her finger back and forth.

“How am I supposed to do it if you won’t let me look at the inbox?”

“Sign in on your phone.”

I don’t know how easy it would be for her to get a bead on my phone, but I figure it would be better not to risk it. I say so, and she heaves a bored sigh. “Fine. I have a drawer full of burners.”

Fifteen minutes later, I’m signed into the Love Fixers account on a burner phone. Sitting in the Love Fixers office.Lainey’soffice. In her sleek leather chair, as if she’s some hotshot New York CEO. There’s another chair, similar in style but smaller, but I was drawn to this one. I wanted to sit where she sits.

I would have known this was Lainey’s space even if Nicole hadn’t told me. It smells like her. It feels like her, truthfully. Most people probably wouldn’t understand that, but places do have a feeling, when someone cares about them. She clearly cares about this place, although it’s only half decorated. The desk looks like an antique. It’s L-shaped, with a little roll-top portion on one side and a flat portion on the other, with two guest chairs across from it. The bookcases against the back wall have an assortment of paperback and hardcover books and some framed photos of Lainey and a blonde woman who must be Claire.

In the corner there’s a little cat bed shaped like a giant paw, obviously a recent purchase, and it comes as no surprise at all when Professor X, who’s been lurking who-knows-where in the house slinks in and settles onto it like it’s a throne.

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