Page 64 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

Tavish takes the taser from me and tucks it into my pants before pulling my overshirt over and doing one of the buttons. “There you go. No one will notice.”

“T-Thank you,” I say, and he gives me a beaming smile that snags my attention.

No idea why… I mean, sure he’s handsome, but the last thing I need to get wrapped up in is a man like him. Even if he is nice and attractive and has done quite a bit to protect my life, it would be in my best interest to avoid him. How would it even work dating someone like Tavish? Someone who is obviously in a whole different world from me.

What the hell am I thinking about? I’m getting far too ahead of myself. Thisisthe man who just abducted me mere days ago.

Leland’s clearly not done as he mutters, “I really did kill that man. Maybe the gum made him choke, and as he hacked it out, he did it with such force that he stabbed himself in the head with the knife he was holding. But it was my gum that started it all.”

“Wait, so he just like coughed andbam,skewered himself?” Cassel asks.

“Sure did. Just a regular day of work.”

I eye the man with abundant suspicion. “When I go to work, I weigh kittens and puppies,” I announce. “And sometimes there will be one puppy that outweighs them all. And it’s really cute and greedy.”

Everyone looks over at me like I’m the weird one.

And instead of shutting up, I just keep talking. “The other day I picked up this older puppy and it was so happy to see me, it peed all down my clothes and then I had to wear my boss’s spare set of clothes because I didn’t have any on me, which was rather awkward.”

“Ohhh, I got peed on once too,” Cassel says. “I was hiding in this bush planning to off some guy when his buddy comes over and just starts pissing on the bush I’m hiding in. I shot them both after that.”

“I would too,” Leland says. “The only man who can piss on me is that man right there.” He nods at Jackson, who looks confused.

“I have never peed on him and hope to never do so,” Jackson puts out there. “I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy it. I’m just saying that I’m not doing it.”

“He wouldn’t even pee on my mosquito bites the one time we went camping.”

“Why would that help inanyway?” Cassel asks.

Leland waves him off. “I’m just saying if it ever happens, Jackson’s the only one allowed.”

I raise my hand. I’m not quite sure why I’ve chosen to do this, but I commit to it until Cassel points at me like I’m the student and he’s the teacher.

“You!” he says.

“Is this… like… shouldn’t we be planning or something? Like making some kind of plan in case Arthur realizes we’re here and we have to like, run out quickly? I mean, did we even stop to look at what floor we parked the car on?”

“He’s cute,” Cassel says.

“And funny,” Leland adds.

I don’t know how they decided that I’m either of those things, but I just sigh in defeat as Tavish pats my back. His pat doesreassure me for some reason. If I really think about it, I’m not quite surewhy,but I take it.

“You don’t need to be so anxious about things. We’ve got it. We parked on level three.”

“Totally level two,” Cassel counters.

“2C, to be exact,” Leland says.

“Or maybe 2B.”

“Or not 2B,” Leland inputs.

I guess this is what you get when you have no money to pay people to save your life. You get the strange, knock-off brand “assassins” who just don’t make sense, but you’re too poor to look for something else.

“It was 2A ramp,” Jackson says before giving me a smile. “See? We’ve got it.”

I really am not confident he has anything, but I give him a smile because he seems so adamant about reassuring me, and I decide he’s a pretty nice guy.

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