Page 3 of The Love Bandits

Maybe I told the story, in part, as a warning.

Don’t trust me.

And here she is, saying she does.

First, Nicole told me she believed in my idea and wanted to help me make a go of it, and now, in her own way, she’s saying she believes inme.

I want that so badly it hurts. Which gives me pause, because I have to wonder: did I manipulate my way here? Was I dishonest without realizing it?

It’s fucking exhausting to constantly second guess yourself.

Sighing, I take a swig of beer and pull my phone out, then scroll to the email, pulling it up. I’ve already told Claire about it, but I didn’t want to play show and tell with Nicole until I’d done a little ground work. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I want to impress her.

I slide the phone over to her.

“Assume I’m illiterate,” she says, squinting at it before sliding it back. Based on the way she was studying it, Claire’s far-sightedness is probably hereditary.

Nicole would die before admitting she needs reading glasses.

“The client went to a party with her boyfriend,” I say, “and later that night, they fought and broke up. But she left her heirloom heart pendant necklace in his apartment. And, get this, he won’t give it back. He claims it’s not there, but she knows exactly where she left it. He’s lying.”

“Why are you so sure of that?” Nicole asks shrewdly, watching me.

“It’s worth a lot of money,” I say, “and it has sentimental value for the client.” I think of the signed Yankees bat I stole from my ex-fiancé, Todd, which has a place of dishonor in my room here. He used to talk about that bat at parties for so long people’s eyes would glaze over, but he’d keep going for at least another two minutes because he wanted to make sure to establish his dominance—it was his privilege to bore them while talking about his privilege.

“He wanted to take something that would hurt her,” I continue, “because she hurt him.”

It’s probably hypocritical for me to care about her emotional pain and not Todd’s, but I didn’t find a stash of vanilla sex emails exchanged between her and her childhood sweetheart.Shedidn’t try to break me like I was a recalcitrant horse.

“Why’d she split up with him?” Claire asks.

“Was it porn?” Nicole puts in with fresh interest. “Let me guess, she found out he was into some really bleak shit.”

I roll my eyes. “She broke up with him because she suspected he was a cheater, one of those guys who wanted to have his cake and eat it too.”

“That’s such a dumb saying,” Nicole says. “Who the fuck would buy a cake but not want to eat it?”

“The ‘fuck you very much’ cookie people,” Claire says sadly, and I can’t help but laugh.

“My point is…” I say, waving my hand. “She didn’t trust him, and he couldn’t come up with a good explanation for his behavior. So she decided to cut her losses, and now he’s holding her necklace hostage, thus proving his unworthiness. Someone needs to step up and deal with this jerk, this absolute waste of humanity. I’m going to get that necklace back for her, and I’m going to make him regret the day he was born.”

“And it will be therapeutic,” Claire says sadly, giving Nicole a significant look that probably flies right over her head. “Because Todd was a cheater.”

“That has nothing to do with this,” I insist.

Another lie, although this time everyone knows I’m lying. Still, there’s a lot Claire doesn’t know about the Todd situation…things I would prefer not to tell her.

“I don’t care,” Nicole says flippantly. “Sounds fun. I like a good heist. I’m in.”

“We could get into trouble,” I admit. “The business could get into trouble.”

We set it up as an LLC, but I’m pretty sure ‘limited liability’ doesn’t cover stealing stuff for people.

“I wouldn’t want to do it if that weren’t a possibility,” she says. “Did you run a background check on this woman?”

Nicole showed me how to do it, so I took that step on my own, wanting to prove that I could follow instructions.

“I did. And I met with her too.”

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