Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

LAINEY

My whole body is dizzy and liquid with pleasure, even though the car's hood is digging into me, and Jake is stretched out on top of me, his elbow planted on the metal to hold his weight. My mind is full of a million different things—so many of them that it would be impossible to fish just one thing to the surface—but I feel good . Jake made me feel good, and I let him, and I'm glad. He's looking down at me with the same kind of wonder I feel coursing through me.

"Wow," I finally say.

And he laughs, pinging his fingers against the hood, his dick still buried inside of me.

"Why are you laughing, you jerk?" I say, shoving his arm, but I'm laughing while I say it, because…well… wow .

He leans in and kisses me softly, his hair brushing my face, then pulls back a little and grins. "Because you really are a hellcat. I'm going to have scabs across my back."

"You're still inside of me," I say, my voice coming out breathy.

"I don't think I want to leave. I may want to stay in here for the rest of my life."

This time, I pull him in for a kiss—

And then I hear a distant tapping sound, followed by a—

I shove him away. From the look in his eyes, he heard it too—and he pulls out, groaning a little at the sensation, and then tugs on his pants. He barely manages to get them up by the time the door to the stairwell creaks open. I pushed my dress down, but I'm still sitting on the hood of the car while he's standing in front of me.

It'll look odd, although admittedly less odd than if he were buried inside of me.

Joy steps out of the stairwell door, smiling broadly when she sees us.

"Yoo-hoo," she says, lifting her hand in a jaunty wave.

Of course it's someone we know.

She walks over without hesitation. If she thinks it's odd that we're hanging out on the hood of my car under a light that's guttered out, it doesn't show.

Jake shoots me a glance, then reaches out to help me up as Joy gets close. I expect him to release my hand, but instead he weaves his fingers through mine. I'm undone by this small gesture.

Joy beams at him. "Oh, I could just tell there was something special blooming between you two. Rosie told me you've already moved in together in Marshall. Lovely place. Some people would say it's too fast, but when you know, you know. Why, I knew the second I saw my Mortimer. Bald as a cue ball, but his love line went clear across his palm. Oh, but he was a beautiful man. Not much to look at from the outside, I'll grant you, but he had the kind of beauty that really matters. We were soulmates. My good friend from the teashop told me so. Every time she read our leaves, she saw a heart. Every time."

Jake smiles at her, his hand still firmly wrapped around mine. "Did you have a nice celebration for his birthday the other day?"

I glance at him in disbelief. It's adorable that he remembers this about her. Even more so that he thought to ask. Each time I tell myself Jake Not-Jeffries can't possibly surprise me anymore, he one-ups himself.

"So kind of you to ask, sweetheart," she says, reaching out to pat his cheek. I know from experience what it feels like—the rasp of his five o'clock shadow, the strong line of his jaw. "Yes. He would have been eighty-five, God rest him. I made a pot of his favorite tea and brought it to the Arboretum." Smiling, she pats him again and steps back, "We liked to have a little fun in public places too. You know, my dear Mortimer spent so much of his seed there, I'm surprised a forest didn't spring up. Oh, to be young. You might want to zip up before you go upstairs, dear, the folks in 2C are prudes."

Laughter rips out of me as Jake lifts his brows and then pointedly fastens his zipper. The condom must still be attached to him, and I can't imagine it's comfortable, a thought that makes me laugh until I'm breathless and nearly doubled over with laughter.

"Yes, it's very funny, Lainey," Jake says, rubbing my back. Turning to Joy, he says, "We were fixing the car. Something was rattling in the engine. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

Laughing softly, she winks at him. "Thank you for connecting me with your friend last night. I'm looking forward to helping out at his tea. Is there any particular energy you'd like me to tap into?"

Jake grins at me and then her. "I don't know. Can you make the other guests confess their deepest secrets to us? That would be helpful."

I expect her to take it as a joke, but she tips her head. "I'm going to give that some thought."

We go up to Jake's apartment to collect the rest of his belongings in trash bags so Jake Jeffries can officially check out of his rental—and so Jake can get rid of the condom that's been "strangling" his dick.

We take a shower that has very little to do with getting clean, and right before we're about to leave so we can drape our homemade banner across the motherfucker's Ducati, my phone rings with a call from Mrs. Rosings.

I show him the screen and then answer.

"Thursday evening," she says without any preliminaries. "Eight o'clock. We'll be attending the community theater together, so please make it worthwhile. It's a Halloween play, Elaine, and they encouraged the audience to ‘dress up.' A woman my age shouldn't be forced to suffer through such an indignity."

"Do you have a key?" I ask, my heart racing in my chest.

"I do not," she says with a sniff. "Do you think they've ever deigned to entertain me ? Perhaps those friends of yours could find a way in?"

She knows about Nicole and Damien.

"We'll figure it out," I agree.

"You sound different," she says suddenly, her tone sharp. "You're with that boy, aren't you? The charming one with the incredibly foolish diet."

"I am, and I feel different," I admit, glancing at Jake, who's sitting on the couch beside me, fiddling with his phone. His toe is tapping to some kind of internal rhythm. I put a hand on his thigh, and he smiles at me.

"I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early. In the meantime…be careful, Elaine," she says, then cuts off the call before I can ask what she means.

Only I think maybe I know. She told Claire that she never really loved any of the three husbands she lost, but maybe that's just a story she tells herself to make it easier. Or, at the very least, it's reductive. Because I can tell Mrs. Rosings is a person who's had her heart broken, and a heart can be broken without being fully given to someone. I know that firsthand.

Maybe she thinks I'm falling into a trap she bit her own leg off to escape from.

I wonder if it felt like this for her too—if excitement and ecstasy lined the path to hell.

"She found us an in to Anthony's house?" Jake asks.

I nod slowly, a feeling of unease creeping into me. "On Thursday night. What happens if we find the necklace?"

"Well," he says, pulling me onto his lap. "I'm glad you asked. We're going to steal it back, hellcat. Maybe we should leave Nina with the bubblegum machine necklace to add insult to injury."

I turn in his lap to face him. "You know that's not what I mean."

His throat bobs as he nods. "I do." There's a few seconds of silence, then he traces his fingers across my lips. "I've got to save my brother, Lainey. I'm all he's got."

"You mean we're all he's got," I correct, wrapping my hand around his jaw and turning his face so his eyes are boring into mine. "You're not alone in this anymore. We're going to save him. But you have to trust us so we can figure it all out together."

Something flashes in his eyes, and he leans in and kisses me. "I trust you ."

But that's not good enough, because I can't help him fix this in a way that sees his brother to safety and gets Mrs. Rosings back what's hers. For that, we need Nicole and Damien. They're the ones who can make that kind of alchemy happen.

I trace the fox on fire on Jake's arm. "You drew this." His hands are always in motion, touching, tapping, drawing . I don't think he even realizes he's doing it half the time.

"Ryan has the same one," he comments, turning his arm so my finger can continue its winding path.

"Why?"

His lips lift slightly. "Foxes need to be crafty to survive. When we were kids, we made up this story about foster kids who could shift into a fox at night and got up to all sorts of crazy shit. Whenever we couldn't sleep, we'd continue the story."

"Is that what your graphic novel is about?" I ask.

He laughs self-consciously, running a hand back through his messy hair. "Yeah, but I wouldn't call it a graphic novel." He lifts his eyebrows, his mouth quirking. "Just some scribbles from when I can't sleep. I know one woman who was particularly unimpressed by them."

I'd like to ask what keeps him up at night. Or what happened to them after their mother left. I'd like to ask him a thousand questions, but with each one he answers I feel the connection between us deepening. And that's more terrifying than the seven years I spent in a cage.

Then, at least, I knew what to expect. I knew where the bars were, and I'd played a part in making them or propping them up.

Now, I don't know what the future holds, other than that it's almost certainly going to tear us apart.