Page 82 of The Love Bandits

Several hours later,after we make a satin banner for Motherfuckergate—Jake revealing an admirable skill for cursive—we’re standing in downtown Asheville with a cookie basket. Claire really outdid herself with this one. There’s an assortment ofFuck You Very Muchcookies shaped like oversized lips, along with an equal number ofPeter, Peter, Pussy Eatercookies designed to look like cats. In the center is the pièce de résistance—a cracked heart cookie reading “I want a divorce.” The whole thing is encased in black, translucent plastic, but we’ll unveil it once we’re inside the conference room.

We’re standing on Church Street, in front of an old clapboard Victorian. The only indication it’s an office is some scrawled cursive branding on the window of the front door, but that only bears the man’s name—Peter Jenkins.

“Do you think it’s significant that his office is on Church Street?” I ask, giving Jake a sidelong look. Church Street is so named because of the multiple churches lining it. Jake is the one holding the cookie basket, because he insisted he’d “look like an asshole” if he was seen empty-handed with a woman half a foot shorter carrying a huge basket.

I told him he already looked like an asshole, and he thanked me.

He gives me one of his crooked Jake Not-Jeffries grins. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

We enter the building and find a rosy-cheeked woman with pin curls sitting behind the broad reception desk. She has a big smile on her face as she takes us in.

“We’re here for Peter,” Jake says with an answering smile. “We have a gift from his lovely wife for his big presentation.”

“Oh, how delightful,” she says, smiling, her gaze flitting to the enormous cookie basket wrapped up in dark plastic.

“From a local bakery,” he continues.

A look of consternation furrows her brow. “Peter doesn’t like to be interrupted. He can get a little tetchy about it.” She pauses. “But hedoeshave a sweet tooth, and I think he just got started. Let me take you back.”

“Thank you,” Jake says warmly. “I’m sure it’ll make his day.”

I hold back laughter, barely, as she leads us to a closed door, the wood floor creaking beneath our feet. She knocks once on the door, behind which a voice is droning on, and seconds later a man with a narrow face and dark brown eyes opens it. “What is it?”

“Are you Peter?” Jake asks, already pushing his way into the room with the cookie basket. I follow him in.

“What’s this all about?” asks the man I presume to be Peter. Inside, there’s a long, broad conference table, newer-looking and out of place in this lovely old house. There are twelve people sitting around the table, and it takes me half a beat to realize they’re all sitting in pairs. Couples, judging from the way a few of them are turned toward each other, one pair holding hands. As we enter, their attention averts from the white board at the front of the room to the wrapped cookie basket.

I glance at the whiteboard long enough to see the message:

Save Your Marriage Bootcamp

Jake meets my gaze, and I can feel the electric glee zapping between and through us. This man is a hypocrite. A jerk. A fraud. A terrible husband and a worse teacher. And we’re about to ruin him with nothing more than a basket of cookies and aninconvenient truth. I brush Jake’s free hand with mine, needing to touch him, to share this moment in every way.

“I hope you’re hungry,” I say with a wide smile as Jake sets the cookie basket down at the head of the table. “Peter’s wife wanted to send in a present for his special presentation. The cookie in the middle is for him, but I’m sure he’ll be willing to share the rest.”

Something passes over Peter’s gaze, but he smiles broadly at the couples, who are murmuring softly to each other. “My wife and I had a little argument,” he tells them. “But what you need to remember is that arguments are natural. They’ll happen to everyone, no matter how solid the marriage. But you can never let an argument fester. This is Mary’s way of saying she’s sorry for our misunderstanding.”

It’s obvious the narcissistic prick means it. He actually believes his poor pregnant wife sent him a cookie basket as an apology for walking in on him giving head to another woman. The audacity is staggering.

There’s something malicious in Jake’s smile as he withdraws a pair of scissors from his pocket and snips the ribbon securing the black plastic covering. It springs open, revealing the basket in all of its glory. TheI want a divorcecookie is the size of a dinner plate, the text large and written out in red capital letters.

Peter stares at it in disbelief, his mouth falling open, his hand lifting to his tie. It’s only then I register that it’s covered in tiny wedding rings.

Plucking out the central cookie, Jake slaps it on the table in front of Peter, who seems frozen. It cracks in half, which is delightfully appropriate. Then Jake pushes the basket to the first couple seated at the table. “Let’s pass that around. Make sure everyone gets one. Sharing is caring, people.”

“Does that say—” chokes out the first man as he pushes up his small, rectangular glasses. His eyes squint at one of the cat cookies.

The woman sitting next to him, who has a profusion of salt and pepper hair and a simple beige dress, scoffs, “If you can’t say it, let alone touch it without two layers of clothing between us, I don’t see this working, Theo. No amount of work will help us overcome that.”

“Mary wouldn’t send that,” Peter snaps, finally waking up from his fugue. He pulls his tie. “Who are you?”

“The Love Bandit,” Jake says, winking at me. “And you know what?” He pats Peter on the back, hard. “Sometimes sorry’s not enough, buddy. Tough break. But at least she told you in a nice way. She could have asked us to dose you with laxatives and remove all the toilets. We would have done it, too. Gladly.”

Glancing around at the murmuring couples seated around the table, Jake adds, “You might want to remember that if you decide you want to fuck around on your pregnant wife. And if he screws up anyway, ladies, here’s how you reach us.”

He throws a bunch of business cards down on the conference room table.

My first thought is: we have business cards?

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